Marks on the city: the impacts of coastline emergence and bombing on Tallinn’s anachronistic pockets

ABSTRACT

With its complex history, Tallinn is a puzzling patchwork of contrasts – old and new, historic and revisionist. Tallinn’s abrupt contrasts in urban form originate largely from two types of historic disturbance: shoreline emergence and bombing. Through an analysis of archival maps and planning documents, this paper examines how natural shifts in the city’s shoreline combined with bombing during World War II to create anachronistic pockets within Tallinn and divergent densities and access to green space within Tallinn’s districts. Little is written in English about the history of Tallinn’s urban development. This paper analyzes Tallinn’s history of disturbance and poses challenges and opportunities to consider in the city’s future development.

KEYWORDS:

• Estonia
• Baltic States
• urban planning
• civic character
• post-Soviet planning
• waterfront
• urban design

Acknowledgments

A 2008–2009 Fulbright Grant supported part of this work. An earlier draft was presented at the May 2016 Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies conference in Philadelphia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

Portions of this work were supported by the US State Department [Fulbright Grant].

Notes on contributors

Vaike Haas

A professional landscape architect, Vaike Haas worked with city officials to examine how public spaces and city planning can better promote ethnic integration in Tallinn, Estonia during her Fulbright Grant. Prior to entering academia, she worked in practice for one of the largest design and planning firms, EDAW (now AECOM | Design + Planning).