TAMPERE

Tampere 1800s
Aerial shot showing construction of some of the Tampere dams


Tampere is located about 200 kilometers north of Helsinki on the Tammerkoski rapids that connect lakes Nãsijãrvi and Pyhãjãrvi. The rapids are formed from the 18 meters difference in height between the two lakes. The city was established in 1779 and, due to the water turbine power from the Tammerkoski rapids, became a hub of industrial manufacturing in the 19th century. James Finlayson established the largest cotton factory here in 1820. The buildings’ size dominated the town. The leading industries were textiles and iron, but it was also home to the first paper mill and the first electric light to be installed in a factory was in Finlayson’s. Today the heavier industries have begun to dissipate and high technology has taken over. The dominant name of Finlayson industries has been pushed aside for the more familiar Nokia.
Early picture of the main dam
The dam today
An early map of Tampere; the development centered around the Tammerkoski rapids.

The beginning of dams along the Tammerkoski rapids around1810
Mid 1800s photo of Tampere from the lower lake
Tampere, late 1800s
Mid 1900 Tampere

Maps of a few year later

The sky line of Tampere is still full of smoke stacks and prominent redbrick industrial buildings but on a closer look very few of the smoke stacks ever produce any smoke, and the main entrances to the brick buildings are no longer for large scale machinery. Instead they have been brought down to a human scale with atomic glass doors that swing open where a 10 meter sliding wooden door once stood. The circulation systems of pulleys and chains in the interiors have been replaced with new lighting and small-scale stairways for human circulation.

The Tampere skyline and rapids taken in the early 1800s
Early worker housing around Tampere
Row of early worker housing
Exterior of worker housing


Interior machinery of one of the ironworks factories

The Finlayson complex still dominates the city’s industrial region. When it was built this was a city within a city. Not only was it the source of most of the jobs for the residents of Tampere but it was also a center of housing, schools, and merchandising . Today it is still a lively community but now, instead of industry, it has been reused to house a number of civic and commercial functions: restaurants, shops, museums, businesses, and galleries. Many of the spaces feel as though they have not changed much from the original uses; piping forms and machinery that is no longer in use still run through the ceilings, and chains hanging from cranes that have not operated in years still swing in the drafts in the new ventilation system. The least successful places are the areas that house the restaurants There the former textile mill has been dissected up into a number of chain restaurants that retain few recollections of what the space used to be. Since the facades of these buildings cannot be changed due to strict preservation codes there is almost no natural light in some areas and the whole space is more reminiscent of a Mall food court than a once humming industry.

Collection of worker housing
Plans and section of the first Finlayson building
Finlayson Hall entrance
Exterior of Finlayson Hall
Street façade along Finlayson Hall today.
Looking down one of the main streets in Tampere toward Finlayson Hall
Tampere today looking up toward the Finlayson complex
Pedestrian corridors added on to connect two of the buildings within the Finlayson complex

The interior of Finlayson Hall; beyond this room is the divided up food court
An alleyway within the Finlayson complex heading toward the arts school gallery


A more satisfactory reuse is that of the old engineering works of Tampella Ltd into a Museum Center. Here you can visit Finland Hockey museum, which consists entirely of displays reliving the 1995 World Championship when Finland beat Sweden to win the title. The buildings house six different museums, photo archives, and a café. The buildings began as a linen and iron factory producing both locomotive turbines and damask linen cloths. The textile production ended in the 1970s and the industrial use of the buildings ended soon after that. Between 1995 and 2000 the buildings were converted into the present day museum facilities. The buildings are centered around a large turbine room, into which all exhibits enter and from which they exit on different levels. The central space is left open and provides a generous amount of daylight into the circulation areas. The café is at one end of the turbine hall and extends outside over the Tammerkoski rapids.

One of the buildings of the Tampella complex in the late 1800s
Exterior of the Tampella building today
Workers in a textile mill
Interior of the textile mills 1900s
Workers, interior of Tampella
Interior of the Tampella iron works around 1900
The main hall in the Tampella iron works
Main room in Tampella Hall today, looking down on the end of an exhibit about Finland’s geological history
Digital section model of the Vapriikki Museum

Heading toward the entrance of the Vapriikki museum
The Vapriikki Café situated above the dam and rapids.

Tampere’s core of industrial buildings still stand today though they house new functions. From a street perspective, the facades of the industrial buildings have remained the same and the street wall, though not always pedestrian friendly, makes it easy to imagine what life was like when the person next to you knew how to work a cotton gin rather then a cell phone.
Remnants of an old staircase and doorway. Today this is a gallery.
Exterior of the banks of the river
Tampere 2007
Tampere 1800s