About this project
Markets in Transit concerns two case studies of urban transformation: Makasiinit in Helsinki and Baltijaam market in Tallinn.
These are spaces of transition. Located near rail stations, where the emptied industrial landscape offered great potential for experimentation and appropriation.
Emerging during a time of rupture (recession, economic restructuring) and a period of shifting cultural value in urban form, these sites reflect larger global patterns of rediscovery and appropriation of former industrial spaces, Both areas became important as sites to enact culture and negotiate transitions. Both places grew out of local initiative, desire and necessity. Now new desires and initiatives, if not necessities have led to new visionings for these places.
In the case of Makasiinit, attempts by local users to challenge, and propose a new trajectory were unsuccessful to alter official plans, and users have now relocated to a new site.
The future of the Baltijaam market is undetermined, but if the experience of Makasiinit is any indication, the shift promises be very abrupt and disjuncted from current use patterns
By looking at both sites, one can better understand the common transition, and larger regional patterns of urbanization. It is also possible to consider new possibilities for acting.
Awknowledging the transititory nature and potential of these sites, can there be another trajectory? One that incorporates and extends the complexity of the sites? How to involve local desires and actors in informing the developments of the site?
These are spaces of transition. Located near rail stations, where the emptied industrial landscape offered great potential for experimentation and appropriation.
Emerging during a time of rupture (recession, economic restructuring) and a period of shifting cultural value in urban form, these sites reflect larger global patterns of rediscovery and appropriation of former industrial spaces, Both areas became important as sites to enact culture and negotiate transitions. Both places grew out of local initiative, desire and necessity. Now new desires and initiatives, if not necessities have led to new visionings for these places.
In the case of Makasiinit, attempts by local users to challenge, and propose a new trajectory were unsuccessful to alter official plans, and users have now relocated to a new site.
The future of the Baltijaam market is undetermined, but if the experience of Makasiinit is any indication, the shift promises be very abrupt and disjuncted from current use patterns
By looking at both sites, one can better understand the common transition, and larger regional patterns of urbanization. It is also possible to consider new possibilities for acting.
Awknowledging the transititory nature and potential of these sites, can there be another trajectory? One that incorporates and extends the complexity of the sites? How to involve local desires and actors in informing the developments of the site?