Just a few minutes’ walk from the passenger terminal of Tallinn Airport is the old passenger building, which was in use from 1954 until 1980, when a new building was completed for the Moscow Olympics. Later, this Stalin-era building has served as office space for Tallinn Airport AS. In spring 2019 – before the Corona pandemic and full-scale war in Ukraine – the Estonian state-owned company unveiled a development plan for the airport site. According to illustrative materials published in the media, there were no plans to preserve the historic building.[1] Although the building is still not under heritage protection, the Estonian National Heritage Board has indicated that it must be preserved, and that if the building is endangered, it is ready to quickly initiate a procedure to have it declared a monument.
The interim collapse of the aviation sector caused by the corona pandemic and the stagnation of the Estonian economy and tourism industry caused by the war in Ukraine froze the project for almost five years. In 2024, the airport resumed the development of its business park – Airport City – which will include aviation-related businesses (aircraft maintenance and repair hangars, an air cargo terminal, etc.) as well as other office and commercial space.[2] The future of the old passenger building has therefore become a topical issue again. In the last five years, the attitude of both the government and society at large towards the Soviet heritage has changed radically, and it is likely that the preservation and protection of the building may be more difficult than before.
What is the value of the building?
The passenger building was designed in 1939 by architects Roman Koolmar (1904-1971) and Artur Jürvetson (1908-1976), who both emigrated to Germany and then to North America in 1944.[3] The building was in use during the war years, but due to the destruction it was not finally completed until 1954. The pre-war modern passenger terminal was then given a Stalinist décor and interior design typical of the era, by Russia-born Estonian architect Paula Koido (1920-2004) and perhaps one of the most important Estonian interior architects of the 20th century, Maia Laul (1921-2009).
There are a few buildings in Tallinn with a similar fate. Of the public buildings that were started during the Estonian independence period but completed after the war, either according to the original or slightly modified design, we can mention the Kopli Primary School (1949-1950) by Herbert Johanson (1884-1964) and Harald Arman (1910-1965), Tallinn Art High School), Herbert Johanson’s Tallinn Central Hospital maternity ward (1939-1947), and Edgar Johan Kuusik’s (1888-1974) Officers’ Central Council building, which opened in 1947 as the Working People’s Culture Building (now the Ministry of Defence). As Mart Kalm says in his compendium of 20th century Estonian architecture, the architecture of these buildings, which were begun before the war and whose completion was delayed until the early 1950s, became more ‘Stalinised’. This was the case with the airport and the old Radio Station (Elmar Lohk, 1939-52), whose pre-war design was redecorated in accordance with the changes made by the architect Grigory Shumovsky, who had been sent to Estonia from Moscow.[4]
Architectural historian Epp Lankots, in his review of Tallinn’s Soviet-era building heritage inventory, writes that while the main façade of the passenger building is dominated by a tall portico of columns, the airport side of the building has a more functionalist feel, emphasised by the aair traffic control tower. In the interior, the most important space is the stylis waiting room, which extends over two floors and features an elegant metal chandelier and two large paintings.[5] Viktor Karrus’ (1913-1991) painting “View of Moscow” depicts modern trolleybuses and luxurious cars moving around the metropolis, while the Kremlin walls and the main building of Moscow University are also depicted in the background as important symbols of Soviet ideology and socialist culture. Richard Sagrits’ (1910-1968) painting “Viwew of Tallinn” focuses on the Old Town and the red-flagged Tall Hermann tower.
Krista Kodres has written that the design and ideologisation of public space was one of the first and most important state tasks in the post-war Estonian SSR.[6] This was not an easy task for Estonian (interior) architects, as they had to adapt to both aesthetic and ideological requirements, but at the same time many of these prescriptions were at best only textual. Nevertheless, interior design details were also controlled. Thus, the same Paula Koido – who is mainly known as the author of the Õismäe tower blocks – together with Alar Kotli compiled a catalogue of architectural details for the Estonian SSR.[7] In any case, the aim for public buildings was to create ideologically effective architecture through a classicist style, which at the same time had to value ethnographic material, oppose bourgeois culture and at the same time be a visual whole that was comprehensible to all. In this respect, the paintings of Karrus and Sagrits can be compared to the late medieval ‘Poor Man’s Bible’, which presented the Testament to the illiterate through a pictorial language.
In semiotic terms, ports, train stations and airports have always been the gateways to the city, a semiotic border zone. The gateways are ideologically charged spaces of translation, where the core of the local culture is explained to the visitor. The presentation of such polished artistic messages was particularly important in the Stalinist Soviet Union. The terminal’s interior both concealed and reflected reality. At the same time, the space, which glorified Soviet life and ideology, sought to inspire people to work heroically to further socialist modernisation. While Riga’s Spilve Airport, designed by Russian architects and completed at the same time, transcended the boundaries of local good taste with its decorative extravagance, Tallinn Airport’s old terminal became more elegant and is a unique blend of 1930s air transport architecture and Stalinist historicism. It is an important part of Estonia’s aviation history, a well-preserved piece of Estonian interior design tradition (Maia Laul was one of the first graduates of the interior architecture course), and tells a rich story of Estonian architecture’s adaptation to Soviet rule.
In 1998-2002, the building underwent a thorough renovation (architect Andres Põime, interior architects Reet Põime, Tiiu Truus). In the 1990s and 2000s, Tallinn Airport successfully cooperated with the Art Museum of Estonia to hold sculpture exhibitions in the lounge of the old terminal, showcasing contemporary art as well as works from the art museum’s collections.
Gregor Taul
[1] Karin Koppel, Muinsuskaitsjad nõuavad Tallinna lennujaama vana reisijatehoone säilitamist. – ERR, 22.04.2019. https://www.err.ee/932395/muinsuskaitsjad-nouavad-tallinna-lennujaama-vana-reisijatehoone-sailitamist
[2] Vt: https://airportcity.ee/
[3] See the monograph of Roman Koolmar: Jarmo Kauge (ed), Arhitekt Roman Koolmar: Oru lossist Detroidi slummidesse. Tallinn: Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum, 2015. See also: Ants Elken, Profiilid: koguteos eesti arhitektidest Kanadas… nende päritolu, elu ja püüdlused / Profiles : the aspirations, lives and accomplishments of Canadian architects of Estonian origin…. Toronto: Eesti Arhitektid Kanadas, 1994.
[4] Mart Kalm, Eesti 20. sajandi arhitektuur. Tallinn: Prisma Prindi Kirjastus, 2001, lk. 242
[5] Epp Lankots, Tallinna nõukogudeaegne ehituspärand. Välitööd ja hinnang objektidele. Tallinn, 2009. https://register.muinas.ee/ftp/XX_saj._arhitektuur/maakondlikud%20ylevaated/harjumaa/tallinn/tallinn2.pdf
[6] Krista Kodres, Ruumi ja vormi ideologiseerimine. – Leonhard Lapin (ed), Eesti XX sajandi ruum / Space in 20th Century Estonia. Tallinn: Leonhard Lapin, Pakett, 1999, lk. 129-173, siin lk. 130.
[7] Ibid., lk. 146.