The former capital and the oldest city of Finland is located on the southwest coast at the mouth of the Aura River. The city with 195,000 population is officially bilingual; a part of population identify Swedish as a mother tongue. It was designated the European Capital of Culture in 2011.

 

THE LOCATION

Former rope factory and shipyard with surroundings (the so called Varvintori area).  A distinctive 270 m long cableway was for a long time the longest building in the Nordic countries in which today the Turku Arts Academy is the main tenant along with the Turku Conservatory and housing association.

 

HISTORY

Aurarivermouth’s exceptionally long port and maritime history begins with the founding of Turku Castle. The area, a central feature of Turku's cityscape, is a diverse and chronologically layered complex of industrial

buildings, wharves, shipyard cranes and other buildings and structures associated with the port, shipyard and industrial area from the late 19th century to the late 1980s. It reflects not only the history of shipping,

but also the growth and prosperity of the shipbuilding industry in Turku and the country as a whole after the Second World War.

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The industrial heritage of the area forms a valuable part of Turku's cityscape and the cultural landscape of the Aura River. As industrial activity has declined, the use of the port and industrial area has changed.

The development of the port and industrial area is linked to the shipbuilding and engineering industry, of which Oy Crichton-Vulcan Ab's (Wärtsilä) engineering and shipyard site is a key part. The shipyard has been the largest of its kind in Finland. The shipyard complex includes the wooden Crichton & Vulcan residential building, built in several parts since 1846 on the eastern bank of the Aura River, which was completed in 1925, the red brick office and residential building completed in 1873, and the former Wärtsilä vocational

school and machine shop built between 1966 and 1970. The latter have been converted to residential and commercial use.

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The rope factory associated with the shipbuilding industry are an integral part of the industrial history of the Aurarivermouth.Three large shipyard cranes stand in the area, two of which are near the dockyard basin, the third in front of the former engineering building on the riverbank.The city ferry Föri, which transported workers from the eastern to the western bank of the Aura River, was built in 1903. The functionalist 270-metre-long cable car building on the west bank, designed by architect Gunnar Wahlroos in 1934, is a unique building type in the country and is of considerable urban significance

along Linnankatu. The two dockyards and the rope factory, built in 1928, have been changed to educational and cultural use, partly for the Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences.

 

THE EXPERIMENT

The facade of the building will be used to explore and show how digital technologies can assist in building a sense of place through communication between architecture and community, its past,present and future. 

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Objective: Use of video mapping on the outer part of the longest building in Turku as a new approach to the revival of industrial heritage (what used to happen in the building will become visible on its outside) – the intervention will connect the past and present and engage the local people to reflect on it.