"Tapiola - New, 50 Years Old Garden City " a Espoo Travel Page by diocletianvs

Tapiola is one of the best known “New Towns” that were built in the 20th Century throughout the world as the response to the needs of urbanisation and pressures to the existing towns. Although Tapiola administratively belongs to town of Espoo it is in fact the satellite town of Helsinki.

But Tapiola is more than the satellite town – soon after the building of the Garden City began in 1953 it developed its own identity that soon became famous not only in Finland but throughout the world.

Tapiola is the real mecca for the lovers of modern urban planning and modern architecture, a beautiful example of the century-old idea of living close to nature. It is no wonder that this modernist idea was realized in Finland, where building was always according to this principle.

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In September 2003 Tapiola was celebrating its first half century. It is still a New Town, especially for someone like me, since the town where I was born was recently celebrating its 1700 years. It was nice to compare the two.

Oh yes, this was an architectural trip, so my tips are mainly concentrated on architecture of Tapiola :-)