Tammsaare Park’s lost landmarks of revolution, Soviet-era path layout, and pedestrian use: Tallinn, Estonia

ABSTRACT

At Tammsaare Park, Soviet-era design elements persist despite political/cultural changes and 2018 renovations. Within the park, the massacre of New Market labor demonstrators sparked outrage during Estonia’s Revolution of 1905; subsequent memorials and the park’s paths gradually evolved until bombing in 1944 obliterated the New Market. A 1947 redesign then diverted attention to a new focal point imposed by crisscrossed paths, which persisted through 2018 renovations, when the memorial to 1905 was peripheralized. Park renovations preserved the early-Soviet era path layout despite changes in circulation, as evidenced by pedestrian counts, illustrating a case study of path dependency in the post-Soviet public space.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban design
• public parks
• cultural history
• pedestrian counts
• public space

Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by the US State Department under a Fulbright Grant (2008–9).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported, in part, by a US State Department Fulbright Grant.

Notes on contributors

Vaike Haas

During a Fulbright grant, Vaike Haas worked with city officials to examine how public space can better facilitate ethnic integration in Tallinn. A professional landscape architect registered in West Virginia, she is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at West Virginia University with research interests in parks as public spaces.