page_title: Tapiola
section_title: Neighbourhoods
hierarchical_section_title: Tapiola / Urban planning / Neighbourhoods
caption_attribution_description: English: The center of Tapiola and the park east of it on a bright June morning. Suomi: Tapiolan keskus ja sen itäpuolinen puistoalue kirkkaana kesäkuun aamuna. Deutsch: Das Zentrum Tapiolas und der Park ost vom Zentrum.
context_page_description: Tapiola is a district of the municipality of Espoo on the south coast of Finland, and is one of the major urban centres of Espoo. It is located in the western part of Greater Helsinki. The name Tapiola is derived from Tapio, who is the forest god of Finnish mythology, especially as expressed in the Kalevala.
  Tapiola was largely constructed in the 1950s and 1960s by the Finnish housing foundation and was designed as a garden city. It is the location of the Espoo cultural centre, the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, the Espoo city museum, and the Espoo City Theatre.
  According to the Finnish National Board of Antiquities, Tapiola was the largest and most valuable example of the 1960s construction ideologies in Finland. Its architecture and landscaping that combines urban living with nature has attracted tourists ever since.
context_section_description: The development of Tapiola occurred in several stages: the eastern neighbourhood 1952 – 1956, the western neighbourhood, 1957-1960, the town centre 1958-1961-1970, the northern neighbourhood 1958-1967, the southern neighbourhood 1961-1965. Planning in Tapiola commenced with architect, Otto-Iivari Meurman's site plan and building schedule which were reviewed from 1951 onwards. His original plan detailed four neighbourhoods split by two crossing roads and set apart by green belts.
  Architects Aarne Ervi, Viljo Revell, Aulis Blomstedt and Markus Tavio were charged with designing the eastern neighbourhood based on Meurman's plan. They were required to design buildings suited to the surrounding environment and the topography of the area.
  A housing team was created to appraise the architects' housing designs; this process occurred more frequently during the development of the eastern neighbourhood. Team members were from a wide range of fields and included a building engineer, a heating engineer, two independent architects, an electrical engineer, a landscape gardener, a domestic science expert, a child welfare expert, a sociologist, and a housewife. This unique team, coupled with the board of the Housing Foundation, assessed housing designs, taking into consideration the needs and desires of future residents from a diverse range of backgrounds. The parties had different beliefs and values, which sometimes led to disagreements, for example the Housing Foundation was concerned with economising whilst the home-economics experts were chiefly concerned with the needs of families. Thus planning in Tapiola was collaborative and proactive as it involved targeting specific family types and classes, deciding on an ideal lifestyle for these residents, which accordingly influenced their behaviours. Many dwellings were designed to house a specific family-type and lifestyle. For example, it was perceived to be ideal to have families with children reside in dwellings, at or close to ground level in order for the children to have better access to the outdoors and to parks, whilst a tower block with one-room flats was designed to accommodate childless couples.
  Meurman resigned from the board of governors of the Housing Foundation in 1954 following a shift from developing a town with low population density (six persons per acre) and low-rise buildings dwellings, as advocated by Meurman, to more multi-storey buildings and a higher population density (30 persons per acre) as recommended by other architects and the Housing Foundation. This shift was prompted by the need to accommodate a larger population, triggered by the housing shortage in Finland. Ervi took up Meurman’s position as master planner.
  The development of the eastern neighbourhood led to the implementation of important planning principles such as providing facilities that encourage interaction and foster a sense of community as well as the separation of vehicles and pedestrians. It was also deemed necessary to have a mixture of building types located within the one area to encourage social diversification. The eastern and western residential areas of Tapiola featured curved streets of varying sizes and positions, whilst the northern neighbourhood designed by architect Pentti Ahola, marked a return to the orthogonal grid plan. Ahola's design however, reflected the original aims of Tapiola; that of encouraging social diversification by locating a variety of building types within the one area. Financial concerns affected the development of the western area of Tapiola, leading to the construction of housing units that were economically feasible.
  In 1953 Aarne Ervi was awarded the commission to plan the town centre. The aim of the town centre's design was to provide all the facilities necessary for a modern urban centre and to maximise social interaction. The centre included a market square, public square, church, public premises, businesses and an administration building. As with the other areas of Tapiola, the centre was designed with consideration for the site's features and terrain as
caption: The park east of the center of Tapiola.
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