New Blocks of Flats - Mapping the Problem
	Piret Lindpere

	Something strange is going on in Estonian residential building. As new real estate villages spread, unhindered, to unoccupied lands beyond the city, a real boom in the building of blocks of flats is taking place in towns. The fever of erecting banks (in the first half of the 1990s) is over, as is an enthusiasm for office buildings (end of the 1990s). Bank buildings have changed hands several times, banks have gone bankrupt, and office blocks stay empty for months... will we be faced with abandoned blocks of flats at some point in the future? No danger of that anywhere in sight. After the end of Soviet-style mass construction and the madness of high-rise blocks, residential building practically halted for more than a decade. The improving standard of living (read: the bank loan interest rates getting drastically lower and the loans themselves bigger) has resulted in an ever-increasing number of people seeking flats. New places cost more and more (the prices of flats have doubled in three years), and thus there is constant fear that the bubble may burst and produce a real estate catastrophe. Flat buyers no longer look first at the price but scrutinise the critical limit of repaying the loan. Soon enough new flats might become unaffordable, and this is true for both desired real estate and that already purchased. It is often difficult to imagine where people in fact lived before, and where all the buyers are coming from, because the prices of old flats seem to be steadily going up as well, occasionally reaching the same level as the new. Three thousand new flats came on the market last year, nearly all booked before the foundations had even been laid. Real estate agencies have databanks of clients eager to buy a flat in a new building as soon as the walls are up. Those who rent are regarded as marginal groups of Estonian society, whereas council flats built by the state are still taking their first timid steps.
	The newly arrived EU has also added to the overall excitement. Some believe that, like the Finns who were counting days to 1 May when the vodka rally started (unlimited access to 80% cheaper alcohol), real estate in Estonia will also be taken by storm. Could it be possible that everybody suddenly wants to come and settle here? What determines the price of a flat? It used to be: location, location, and location. With the world getting smaller and smaller this argument does not really matter quite as much, at least in a city the size of Tallinn. Another aspect has emerged instead: the view. Wasteland that a few years ago nobody fancied in the least is suddenly much coveted, because the real estate agent has discovered a 'wonderful view' (the fact that this can be enjoyed only by people living on upper floors is naturally passed over in the ads). Apparently all that matters is the opportunity to quickly drive to the garage under the house, take a lift to the living room and then on to the balcony to admire the view. Other considerations such as where to push the pram or take the dog for a walk, where the children can play or whether granny can get to the shops on her own, are conveniently forgotten. Thanks to the many Tallinn bays, it is possible to see from the uppermost floors (that is of course why apartment houses must be as high as possible) both sunrise and sunset, the evening and morning sea, a lake, a pine forest, the silhouette of the Old Town or Toompea Hill. If the view includes all of the above, the price will shoot through the ceiling. In the worst cases, the owner of the best view can only enjoy it for a few months - until it is replaced by the dull pattern of the windows of the facing skyscraper.
	The heart of the city has been and will naturally remain a valuable location, although it is hardly likely that a considerable part of the population, whose urban experience extends just a little over one hundred years, would consider living in a city centre skyscraper an ideal solution. Other such locations include seaside areas and traditionally highly valued residential areas (balanced on the critical border of nature, the high-rise blocks quietly sneak into private residential areas with increasing boldness). The current debate about a 16-storey luxury building destructively forced into the dendropark of the Flower Pavilion will show whether the architects who initiated the debate can save this sensitive coastal area, with its fragile and elegant 1960s architecture, by successfully opposing the joint efforts of real estate agents and politicians to produce a little Manhattan. The architects dream about architecture getting the upper hand. Where a Canadian architect ends, an Estonian one is just starting. The architects who designed municipal buildings have discovered (anti)aesthetics in unpainted factory panels (a new means of saving); elsewhere an attempt has been made to add artistic flavour to blocks of flats through tectonics, finishing and fashionable tricks of the trade (painted whitewash or acrylic glass details, the rhythm of windows that produce a shift). Elaborating on both the aesthetic and functional sides certainly means unpleasant extra costs for the developer. A block of flats, in accordance with market models, must be an economic residential structure, a rational box both in content and construction. An architect has to struggle in the narrow range between the real estate developer's wishes (to fill the site to the maximum of the permitted building extent at minimal cost), and his own creative ambitions. Simultaneously he has to produce a sense of context and make the building relate to the surrounding urban environment. After all, it is not the real estate developer or politician who is held responsible for the environment, but the architect. Thus the quality of architecture arises as an independent factor, although the means of expression and the borders within which the architect can operate, are all too narrow. One might hope that the professional level of an architect will be more appreciated by real estate developers: why not offer the client the luxury of high-quality architecture?
	However, the prospective buyer of a flat (if he is not intending to sell it for profit or rent out) would also like a comfortable place to live for his family. How do these wishes coincide with those of the developers? Just as in the Soviet practice of mass construction, developers still target the average consumer. Two to three room 70 square meter apartments sell best. Those with four rooms are often built on two storeys, and have wide terraces or a private garden, clearly emphasising luxury (primarily in terms of price of course). Families with children are thus firmly pushed to the more reasonably priced areas beyond the city. Flat planning has remained unchanged for decades. Even the open kitchen is more like a posher version of a living room with a kitchen corner. There are amazingly few blocks of flats with anything radically new on offer. In the new Dutch residential areas, for example, not one block of flats is just the usual complex of storeys, and similar facades hide an impressive variety; whereas the modest real estate market in Estonia cannot afford experiments. One of the very few truly original residential projects of recent years is the suburban area of Laagri (AB Kosmos, architects Ott Kadarik and Mihkel Tüür). In addition to their attractive exteriors, the buildings are designed for different target groups and seriously and thoroughly tackle the continuity of the interior's private space and the exterior's public space.
	Whether it was chance or not, the recent annual exhibition of the Estonian Architects' Association at Rotermann Salt Storage, dealing with urban housing and areas during the last decade, also presented among 50 or so blocks of flats and terraced houses a prison. The new prison in Tartu (architect Kalle Rõõmus), in accordance with all EU regulations, seems to the journalist Tõnu Kaalep uncannily similar to the experimentally minimalist municipal building of the same time that was among the nominees of the year's best architectural work (architectural office Muru & Pere). Both offer their inhabitants every opportunity for normal existence, and their architectural appearance is dictated not so much by cheap technology as by contemporary trends. The difference is that the prison is surrounded by a three kilometre-long fence.... No prisons had actually ever been built in Estonia before, and those in use were not originally designated to accommodate prisoners, so there was no previous experience. It therefore came as a surprise that the inmates preferred the traditional, overpopulated Soviet prison to a more modern and private chambertype institution. There are frequent problems with inmates who, in a rage, smash the designed tables and chairs in several hundred cells, and break the expensive windows. The public quite justifiably wondered whether there was any point in experimenting and thus wasting a lot of money on a Euro-prison? According to our changing understanding of things, the space around us changes as well. Or perhaps the other way round. Piret Lindpere (1963), architecture critic and art historian. Since 1992 works in the Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia as an assistant director. See also www.cca.ee
	| Estonian Art 1/04 (14) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2004 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |