Harmonising with Dissonance

Abstract

Tallinn is a dissonant city, constituted by fragmentary materialisations of superimposed layers of historical visions, that were developed under radically different socio-political frameworks. The resulting dissonance reaches from the large urban scale, down to the human experience of the city. Today, Tallinn is subject to progressive “smoothing”, homogenising and commercialising its cityscape, based on the exclusion of materially and socially dissonant elements. This is especially tangible in the Central Market of Tallinn, that is characterised by dissonant heritage, the Soviet market hall, on the one hand, and a dissonant community, Russian speaking vendors and market-goers, on the other. Its isolation and poor condition, has brought the market under imminent threat of demolition, which would eliminate the storied history of the site and eliminate its characteristic dissonance. By problematising fragmentation and valuing a generative reading of dissonance, based on the notion of defamiliarisation, a new proposal is drafted, that attempts to turn Keskturg from a poorly maintained commercial space into a common local centre, fostering both the connection between isolated communities and the fragments of built heritage on site. It attempts this by bringing together difference – instead of superficially smoothing, it harmonises with and embaces Tallinn's dissonance.