Last week, the Estonian government announced this year’s national laureates of the Culture and Sports Awards, which included the core team of EKA research project “Unfinished City” – for the research itself, the exhibition summarising the research and the “Unfinished City” book. Congratulations and thanks to all the colleagues, students and good partners who contributed to the project – there are so many of you!
Both the exhibition at the Estonian Museum of Architecture and the underlying research project focused on the common desire to outline the spatial future of Tallinn as a sustainable, competitive city – to try to describe what Tallinn should and could be like, if it was to be a good place to live for future generations. All the architects, urban planners and students of architecture and urban planning who took part in the project believe that if we want to come to an agreement on the future ambitions and developments of Tallinn on as wide a base as possible, we need to involve knowledge from different parties, look to the future, get a sense of the problem areas and spot the potential of improving our city.
According to architect and EKA doctoral student Johan Tali who led the research project, we are all “users” of the city as citizens and therefore should care how and in which direction the city develops. As the research and exhibition provided a big picture of Tallinn as the capital of Estonia, our sincere hope was that it also sparked and built up ambition for the audience to truly pay attention to and comprehend what is happening in the cityscape of Tallinn. Everything that happens in Tallinn should be aimed at the benefit of the city residents. The state culture award is a great recognition for all parties who were involved in the project through its three years, explained Tali.
According to Andres Ojari, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of EKA, what should not be overlooked, when assessing the success of the research project, is the generous contribution of the real estate company Kapitel, which supported “Unfinished City” since the very beginning – this deep dive into the possible future scenarios of Tallinn could not have taken place without Kapitel’s contribution and help.
Research project “Unfinished City. Tallinn’s Urban Vision”
Team of the research project and main contributors: Andres Alver, Pille Epner, Andres Ojari, Johan Tali, Toomas Tammis.
Curators of subtopics (in addition to the main working group): Douglas Gordon, Raul Kalvo, Kalle Komissarov, Eve Komp, Katrin Koov, Indrek Peil, Renee Puusepp, Andres Sevtšuk, Siiri Vallner.
An important part of the research project was the exhibition “Unfinished City. Tallinn’s Urban Visions ”at the Estonian Museum of Architecture (curator Johan Tali, exhibition design Raul Kalvo), as well as the research project book “Unfinished City – Tallinn Urban Visions” (editor Pille Epner, graphic design Agnes Ratas), which was recently nominated as one of the 25 most beautiful books in Estonia in 2021, and awarded the title of the Golden Book of the Estonian National Library.
“Unfinished City” was a wide-ranging research project conducted in cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture of EKA and the City of Tallinn, which focused on Tallinn’s urban planning visions and spatial future scenarios for three years. The research was carried out thanks to the support of the real estate company Kapitel, which contributed a total of almost half a million euros to the project over three years.
Read more about the research project here.
More info on all other prize winners is available at the website of the Ministry of Culture (in Estonian).