Beautiful old buildings from Vyborg being remodelled in Tampere

Buildings as they were in the fall of 1939

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By Jukka Harju and Juhani Saarinen
     
      The TAMK University of Applied Sciences, formerly the Tampere Polytechnic, has almost completed a major project aiming at creating a 3D-modelling into the web environment of the Karelian city of Vyborg as it was in September 1939 when it was still a Finnish town and named Viipuri.
      The 3D-modelling work will be published on the Internet, where the buildings can be examined either one at a time or one block at a time. "Virtual Vyborg" consists of 3D-models from about 800 photographs of buildings as well as some video material.
     
According to lecturer Harri Miettinen, the Virtual Vyborg project is a good example of a modern way of presenting the history of architecture.
      Dozens of students have been creating drawings of buildings as part of guided practical training with the help of old photographs and blueprints.
      The work has particularly benefited students of construction engineering.
     
"Modelling work teaches students to read and compare photos", says Miettinen.
      "This kind of 3D-modelling will soon be a part of a regular construction process, while our students learn by drawing pictures using ArchiCAD, a three-dimensional architectural design software package. When creating drawings of these difficult old buildings with ornaments and curves, bay windows, and patterns, one is bound to learn a lot", notes Miettinen.
      The project is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2009. The final goal is to put up a Virtual Vyborg with moving people, trams, voices, etc. In the implementation of the virtual town, old topographic maps would also be used, showing for example the changing street elevations.
      "In the next phase of the project, the aim is to place the modelled buildings in a terrain model which has been created of the entire centre of Vyborg. This is likely to be the largest such modelling ever done anywhere, in terms of accuracy", reports Miettinen.
      The old photographs come from the collections of architect Jalmari Lankinen, who took thousands of negatives away from Vyborg before the town was seized by the Soviet Army.
     
Another good source of information has been a scale model of Vyborg located in the South Karelia Museum in Lappeenranta. The scale model shows the town on September 2nd, 1939 at 10.30 a.m., as seen from an aircraft.
      In the drawings created by the TAMK students, the buildings are flawless, clean, colourful, and almost candy-like, while the actual buildings in today’s Vyborg look rather different in the grey autumn of 2007.
     
Juha Metso took the photographs of the actual buildings in Vyborg at the beginning of December. Here the modelling picture and a photograph of the actual building are shown next to each other.
      "Even Russians themselves are feeling regret because nothing has been done to the buildings", says Jalmari Lankinen’s son, architect Juha Lankinen.
      "They could still be rescued. But it is a shame that they have been allowed to rot. It is strange that nobody cares as long as the damage could be repaired at a relatively small cost. But when a catastrophe eventually occurs, and everyone wakes up, there is no money", Juha Lankinen argues.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.12.2007


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Sixty years ago today: Decisive battles of the Continuation War begin (9.6.2004)

Links:
  Viipuri/Vyborg (Wikipedia)
  Virtuaali-Viipuri -projekti / Project Virtual Vyborg
  ArchiCAD (Wikipedia)

JUKKA HARJU AND JUHANI SAARINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jukka.harju@hs.fi, juhani.saarinen@hs.fi