{"id":3299,"date":"2021-01-04T16:19:26","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T14:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helsinginpuistot.fi\/hp\/?p=3299"},"modified":"2024-03-20T15:32:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T13:32:03","slug":"toolonlahden-puistoalueen-historia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/toolonlahden-puistoalueen-historia\/","title":{"rendered":"History of the parks by T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6nlahti"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The green areas in the T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6 district date back to the time of the first villas and the T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6 Park Company in the 1800s. The Hesperia villa district and Hesperia restaurant were familiar to residents of Helsinki already in the 1840s. They were part of the large El\u00e4intarha (\u201cZoo\u201d) park area that was leased in the mid-1800s by the T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6 Park Company (T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6n puistoyhti\u00f6) founded by Henrik Borgstr\u00f6m, the same man behind the spa in Kaivopuisto. His idea was to create a park and another spa beside the well-known health spring in T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6. Unfortunately, the spring did not survive the construction of the railway, but the park project continued nonetheless. Borgstr\u00f6m also planned to build a zoo, which is where the area gets its name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Signe Brander, 1908. Helsinki City Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Signe Brander. Helsinki City Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Hesperia park Signe Brander, 1912. Helsinki City Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Signe Brander, 1911. Helsinki City Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Signe Brander, 1912. Helsinki City Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Hakasalmen puisto \u2013 Hakasalmi park Helsinki City Museum, 1911<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Hakasalmi park Sakari P\u00e4lsi 1920. Helsinki City Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Hakasalmi park Ivan Timiriasew, 1920\u20131929. Helsinki City Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The lease expired in 1892. In 1904 the Gardening Board submitted to the City Council a plan drawn up by City Gardener Svante Olsson in 1900 in which the El\u00e4intarha project was expanded to encompass the shorelines of three bays: T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6nlahti, El\u00e4intarhanlahti and Kaisaniemenlahti. The plan also included designs for Kaisaniemi Park and Hakasalmi-Hesperia Park. The aim was to create a public sports park with a network of shoreline paths connecting the areas around the bays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The general attitude towards parks had changed in the first decade of the 20th century as work on the Kaivopuisto and Observatory Hill parks had progressed. The city began to expand in the direction of T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6 in the 1920s and 1930s. Accordingly, the Gardening Board wanted to transform T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6nlahti and El\u00e4intarha into recreational areas for the \u201cunderprivileged\u201d and a centre for sports. In the late 1800s author and journalist Zacharias Topelius in particular had highlighted the need for recreational areas for the common people. Since workers already enjoyed relaxing on the hills and rocks, the natural landscape was left almost entirely intact. In addition, the park was built largely as relief work, so the people quickly adopted it as their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olsson wanted to make sure that people could walk down by the water while admiring the trees and shrubs. Ornamental plantings would be kept to a minimum. According to a contemporary newspaper article: \u201cThe working man and the indigent class in general require less refined recreational areas where they can unabashedly eat their bag lunches, make a little mess with their eggshells and dance around without attracting too big an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hesperia-Hakasalmi Park was opened to the public in 1903. Hakasalmi Villa and its garden also transferred to the city and were added to the park. Around the same time plans were proposed for another important green area in Helsinki. The predecessor to the Town Planning Division drew up its own proposal for creating a \u201cCentral Park\u201d. The town plan for T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6 that was approved in 1906 proposed a large park complete with playing fields and paths. Architect Bertel Jung<\/a> (1872\u20131946) drew up plans for Keskuspuisto in 1911, and they were presented in 1913.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hakasalmi Park is connected to Hesperia Park \u2013 the border between the two is a path that passes to the east of Finlandia Hall Katri Pyyn\u00f6nen<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A 2.2-kilometre recreational path circles the bay Hannu Bask<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The ornamental villas in the Linnunlaulu district are an integral part of the landscape around the T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6nlahti bay. In the 1880s the city began leasing land plots for building villas in El\u00e4intarha, and over the next two decades 15 villas were completed along with their stables and outhouses. The villas have had a history as colourful as their reputations. They have been called professors\u2019 villas, rental barracks, slums and architectural gems. Seven of the villas have been demolished, and numbers 8, 9 and 12 are perched right on the edge of the cliff overlooking the railway lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original industrial buildings that had long polluted the bay were demolished one by one along with the last remaining private villas along the western shoreline. Hesperia Park was once the site of a sugar factory, a soap factory and a candle factory, not to mention a factory producing playing cards and a cannery. The industrial history of this area can still be seen in the impression across the lawn caused by the original railway line. The sugar factory in particular polluted the bay so badly that it is still considered too dangerous to dredge and make the bay suitable for swimming. Nevertheless, the water quality in the bay is improving with each year that goes by, as seawater is pumped in from the Taivallahti bay. The aim is maintain T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6nlahti as a sea bay, but unfortunately it is still not clean enough to swim in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The park has since been renovated as needed. The once popular baseball field in Hesperia Park had to make way in the 1970s for Finlandia Hall designed by legendary\u00a0architect Alvar Aalto<\/a>\u00a0(1898\u20131976). The Finnish National Opera and its amphitheatre were designed by architects Hyv\u00e4m\u00e4ki, Karhunen and Parkkinen and completed in 1993, occupying one corner of the park but enhancing its prestige at the same time. The amphitheatre is a popular hangout and stage for small productions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The white willows along the shoreline were planted in late 1940. The park was renovated initially for the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were postponed due to the war until 1952. The shoreline was renovated again in the 1990s, when the walking path was widened and divided into separate lanes for pedestrians and cyclists. The park lighting was renewed for the jubilee year in 1999. Today, the focus of work is on planning shoreline structures and renewing the willow-lined alleys. A historical survey and inventory of plants have been made to prevent anything of value from being inadvertently lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The green areas in the T\u00f6\u00f6l\u00f6 district date back to the time of the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[225],"class_list":["post-3299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-toolonlahti","tag-history"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/hp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/hakasalmen-puistoa-feature.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11401,"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions\/11401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vihreatsylit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}