Heritage of the Finnish Civil War monuments in Tampere

ABSTRACT

The 100th anniversary of the Finnish Civil War has made questions about the construction of its heritage and cultural memory topical. Taking the concept of dissonant heritage as a starting point, the paper looks at two monuments in the City of Tampere and their reception and landscape, focusing on recent decades. War monuments are always understood within the framework of current politics, but they are also in continuous dialogue with their physical surroundings and, thus, shape and are shaped by their landscape. In this paper, we look at the statues as arenas for politics of history and cultural memory, and the changes and continuums they carry with them. Monuments are at the core of urban public space and the processes of placemaking. Even when they are distanced from the historical events, they represent and remind us of the historical and political nature of public space.

KEYWORDS:

• War heritage
• monuments
• Finnish Civil War
• urban space
• memorial landscape

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ranja Hautamäki

Ranja Hautamäki works as Associate Professor in landscape architecture, at the Department of Architecture at Aalto University, Finland. Her field is landscape planning and society, including historical landscapes and urban green planning. She has a 13-year professional background as the head of the landscape planning unit at the City of Tampere.

Silja Laine is Postdoctoral Researcher at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. The research for this article was conducted while she had an affiliation with the Department of Architecture at Aalto University. She holds a PhD in cultural history. Her research interests cover urban history, landscape studies and literature.