The academy lost the new building it had won a competition for. So it bought a factory instead, and had it operated on rather than replaced.
At a glance
The Estonian Academy of Arts works in the former Rauaniidi factory in Kalamaja, the old wooden-house and industrial quarter on the harbour side of Tallinn. The academy chose the site in September 2013, after its planned new building elsewhere in the city was blocked. KUU Architects won the competition in 2014 with a scheme of cuts and insertions into the existing structure rather than a new building, and the works were carried out in 2017–18.
Key facts
- The building: the former Rauaniidi factory, Kalamaja district, Tallinn
- Site chosen: September 2013
- Why: the earlier “Art Plaza” project, won at an international competition, could not be built after a neighbour’s opposition
- Architects: KUU Architects — Joel Kopli, Koit Ojaliiv, Juhan Rohtla, with the philosopher Eik Hermann, Kalle Komissarov and Rene Sauemägi
- Approach: described by the review as surgically precise incisions and considered additions to the existing building
- Timeline: competition 2014, design 2015–17, construction 2017–18; the Soviet-era wings were demolished
- Builder: Astlanda Ehitus, contract signed 3 January 2017, €16.2 million including VAT
- Size: about 12,302 square metres of enclosed net space
- Funding: co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund
- GPS: 59.4425, 24.7407 · Open in Google Maps
History
The academy had done things the usual way: an international competition, a winning design, a site on Tartu mnt. A neighbour objected, and the project died. That is an ordinary planning story, and it is why this building exists.
In September 2013 the academy chose the Rauaniidi factory in Kalamaja instead — a quarter of wooden houses and industry by the harbour, then in the middle of becoming the part of Tallinn everybody wanted to be in. A second competition, in 2014, was won by KUU Architects, four of whom had studied at the academy themselves.
What they proposed was not a new building wearing an old skin. The Soviet-period wings were removed and the original structure was cut into and added to — the review that followed called it surgically precise incisions and considered additions. The contract went to Astlanda Ehitus in January 2017 at €16.2 million, the European Regional Development Fund paid part, and the work was done across 2017 and 2018.
Kalamaja
Kalamaja — “fish house” — is the district between the old town and the sea where Tallinn’s workers lived in wooden houses and where its factories stood. It emptied when the industry went, and filled again from the 2000s. An art academy moving into one of its factories is part of that second filling, and the building’s refusal to look new is a position taken about it.
What you see
A factory, still legible as one: long window bands, a plain industrial mass, and new work that announces itself as new rather than imitating what it joins. The cuts are where the light and the circulation go. Twelve thousand square metres of art school fit inside without the outside pretending to be anything else.
Sources & resources
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