From left: Tallinn mayor Mihhail Kõlvart, EKA rector Mart Kalm, Dean of Architecture Faculty Sille Pihlak
Today, December 1, 2023, members of the Rectorate of the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) met with the mayor of Tallinn, Mihhail Kõlvart, to discuss cooperation opportunities between the city and the university. Also, the development visions of the Art Academy campus in the block of Põhja Puiestee and Kotzebue Streets were presented at the meeting.
EKA Rector Mart Kalm noted that the vision of the art academy is in line with the arts activity center described in the Tallinn Development Plan and is in line with the university’s goals to introduce and offer creative activities to the city’s residents. “This would provide the necessary infrastructure for the university and a creative house open to the city, where research, creativity and entrepreneurship meet, the interaction of which will result in new developments beneficial to all of Tallinn,” said Kalm.
EKA has a long-term cooperation with the city of Tallinn, and a cooperation agreement has also been concluded. Large-scale projects have been carried out in the fields of architecture, design, heritage protection and art, within which comprehensive research in urban planning, heritage protection, design were carried out with the purpose to enrich the public space.
According to the mayor of Tallinn, Mihhail Kõvart, the city has had a good cooperation with the Academy of Arts, during which several research projects have been born that make sense of the capital’s spatial development, such as “The Unfinished City”, as well as studies for a more sustainable development of the old town or improving the signage system. “The vision of the Academy of Arts to build a creative house on the border of Kalamaja and the city center is certainly strategically important, but it must be done in a way that takes into account all the citizens of the city and must be in line with the city’s spatial goals and interests,” said Kõlvart.
In the future, it is desired to develop cooperation in the renovation of panel houses, using wooden material in facade solutions, which is handled by the corresponding competence center for wooden architecture PAKK in EKA.
It was jointly recognised that the EKA campus is the beginning of Tallinn’s wider sea vision and new knowledge will be transferred from here, which will enrich the life of the entire city.