Tere, see post on inglise keeles sest ma ei oska sellest veel eesti keeles rääkida.

I have been here for a few years (about 3) and I remember talking about a possible demolition or requalification of the Linnahall site (especially after the Tenet filming).

Today I watched all the news about a possible extension of the Estonia theater. I had very mixed feelings about it. Since I work close to that field and I am myself an opera goer, I was happy that the government was investing in culture and trying to relaunch the Estonia theater after all the cut done post Covid. On the other hand, the project is imho terrible under many aspects: costs, design, location, historical.

By reading this [err article](https://www.err.ee/1608853307/estonia-juurdeehitus-tekitab-erimeelsusi-ka-tallinna-linnavalitsuses), I see that Linnahall has been taken into consideration but has been discarded. Can someone explain me why? Especially after the Kalaranna project, the new promenade, why there is still this concrete monolith there? Why not taking this chance to do something? And also, why not building a new space, more modern and environmental friendly in the outskirt of the city? Maybe in a plot or area in the outskirt, so to “upgrade” those areas (e.g. Lasnamae, Kopli, Mustamae)?

Thank you in advance to whoever shares their opinion

6 comments

  1. Some of the concerns have been:

    – Linnahall is too big to be used only as an opera house. It would also need to work as a conference hall and logistically it sets some limitations.
    – Restoring Linnahall is in itself only a semi-popular and semi-unpopular idea with people being quite divided on the issue. Many would rather like it if the building was torn down.
    – The building is in a bad condition, so restoring it may be far more expensive than just building a new building for the opera. Needless to mention that restoring it would take far more time than building a new opera house.

  2. The image is not of the building that would go there, just the size and location estimate. And it’s still terrible, of course. It’s bad enough to have Estonia be surrounded by a parking lot, this would obscure the original building and obstruct foot traffic in the area. It’s frankly outrageous to me that such an idea is on the table, although it sounds like Keskerakond doesn’t support it. I’m just a pedestrian though.

    The argument for not doing it near Linnahall is that it would cost more since they couldn’t use the existing buidling (300 million vs 100 million euros).

  3. Linnahall is a difficult one. It was built for the 1980 soviet olympics. The project was rushed to meet the deadline and as such it was in bad shape even back then. Now 43 years later it badly needs renovation but it is really expensive to fix so that hasn’t happened yet. There has been multiple plans but at some point they have all been cancelled. It is just very expensive to do so – therefore it isn’t feasible (at least yet) to renovate it.

    But you also can’t demolish it as it is one of the most unique buildings of Estonia. You may not like it but Linnahall is absolutely a highlight in the history of Estonia’s architecture. As a child I thought it was ugly and tbh I still think so. But consider how big the building actually is – it manages to not block access to the sea despite that. I mean even with it being abandoned you can still go on the roof, I don’t think people realize how great that is. I understand that people find it ugly and that uniqueness alone doesn’t justify it’s existance but I really can’t understand how people want to replace this.

    I think people have no faith in architects anymore and fair enough I suppose – I mean I personally dont agree but its subjective. I just find it weird that people are really careful with adding anything to Estonia yet find it easy to get rid of Linnahall. Why do you trust architects to ruin Estonia and not the replacement of Linnahall?

    That being said I know I’m really biased in this. My taste is weird I like interesting ugly things like Linnahall and I don’t particularly like the opera house – it looks like a cake I don’t care for it it’s wack.

    I think realistically Linnahall will get demolished or it will collapse. Whichever happens I’ll be sad.

    Shoutout linnahall its real good 8/10

  4. Linnahall is built as a amfitheater, and the city demands that if it is restored then the amfitheater part must remain. One of the reasons for a new theater stage is because the Estonia theater stage is too small compared to theaters from around the world. We can’t invite them to visit us if they can’t fit. Also building a extension to Estonia theater gives it a possibility to share decorations between the two theaters. I personally wouldn’t mind the extension to Estonia if they would keep the jugenstil. [But now they showed us that modern disaster they have in mind](https://www.err.ee/1608853307/estonia-juurdeehitus-tekitab-erimeelsusi-ka-tallinna-linnavalitsuses)

  6. I don’t think moving the opera out of the city centre is an option: even building Kumu in Kadriorg, which many would argue is still pretty central, is still regarded as controversial by some, and I don’t think Estonia theatre would ever, ever agree to a location on the outskirts. Part of this is elitism (hating on Lasnamäe in particular is still very common), another part is objective concern about handling logistics and attracting enough audience in a meh location, and finally, it’s really not that easy to find a good place for a big building like this, when every available plot in even remotely appealing areas is being filled with mediocre apartment blocks, and local communities are increasingly concerned about the loss of green spaces. I personally wouldn’t mind if it could be plonked somewhere in Kadriorg too, e.g. there is a weird parking lot/empty plot near the tennis courts (that I think someone managed to scheme away from the park when life was messy in the 1990s, but isn’t allowed to use it for anything), but it seems unlikely.

    It’s obvious the seaside area in the city centre might be a good option, and it shouldn’t be taboo to talk about potentially replacing Linnahall, however, that’s just not going to happen. I guess we will find out in a few years just how hard and how much more expensive than expected it was to fully renovate another one of Raine Karp’s massive Soviet-era projects, the National Library; and that one at least has an important public function and will be actively used. Fixing Linnahall on the other hand would make whatever it costs to fix the National Library look cheap, and would be a money sink with no real use. The semicircular stage and 4000-seat theatre was well suited for Communist party congresses, rather than any form of music or theatre, but there aren’t many conventions or conferences these days that would need a room with that many seats (weird religious nutjob conventions maybe, but it’s not like we get those every other weekend, and trade shows or academic conferences need completely different spaces). Linnahall is appealing in an Architecture of Doom kind of sense, but we can’t afford to upkeep it for the handful of the tourists that are into Soviet brutalism. Trying to rethink the building’s functions would clash with protecting it as a unique piece of architecture, and I don’t really see much room for any passable compromise. I think it would make sense to let it go and start over from scratch. However, I don’t see any politician willing to say it, much less pony up a ton of public money for the demolition. It will probably just quietly rot for the foreseeable decades until it has to be demolished for public safety, and by then building this close to the seafront might be a bad idea anyway.

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