Kesklinn Community Centre
Reimagining Soviet-Era Heritage through the Lenses of Memory and Perception
I.N. Nikolova (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
WWLM Wilms Floet – Mentor (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
N.L. Tilanus – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
Eric Ferreira Crevels – Mentor (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
DA Groetelaers – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Education and Student Affairs)
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Abstract
My graduation project explores the relationship between memories, perception, and Soviet-era architecture. The project site is the former "Turist" foreign currency shop in Tallinn, built for the 1980 Summer Olympics. As a Soviet-era building aimed at those with foreign currency, it symbolizes the inequalities of the Soviet regime.
Despite years of trials, the government has failed to secure heritage protection for the building. An architectural competition plans to replace it with a high-rise, which would cause a significant loss to architectural heritage and additionally intensify Tallinn’s existing issue of constructing without regard for urban context and human scale.
An alternative to the current demolition plan is proposed - preserving and transforming the Turist shop while honouring the past, present, and future. Memories and perception in architecture serve as a foundation for reimagining the space and for guiding the design proposal, transforming the former shop into an inviting community centre. The form, scale, proportions, materialization and detailing of the new extension contrast that of the communist monument, maintaining a balance that avoids overshadowing it. This is achieved through a composition characterized by rhythm, simplicity and a strategic interplay between closeness and openness. An atrium between the two buildings is the heart of the project, where the past and the present exist together.