Alteration in the Awareness of Estonian City Space from Independence to Stalinism

Abstract

The presented research focuses on the alteration of Estonian city space awareness within the period of the mid-1940s and 1950s. Soviet occupation changed Estonian city space as the materialisation of ideology. Paradoxically, regardless of the war’s destruction and occupying Soviet regime, Stalinist town planning principles generally matched with Estonian architects´ city visions. Some existing towns (for instance Tallinn, Pärnu, Narva) gained new centres due to the damage from the war and for ideological reasons. Meanwhile, new industrial towns, as examples of Stalinist utopia, were built in East-Estonia during 1940s-1950s by the Soviet regime to exploit local mineral resources. While the Tallinn, Pärnu, Tartu new Stalinist centres were designed by local architects, the new industrial towns represented so-called imperial city space principles elaborated under the guidance of the Leningrad construction departments. Was there any difference between the pre-war independence period city space and the Stalinist period city space? Where lies the alteration of Estonian city space awareness from independence to Stalinism?