The first section of Pollinator Highway, between Ristiku tänav and Kolde puiestee, opened last September. The corridor, consisting of nine green areas, will largely follow the former railway line and will eventually reach Hiiu.
Under the original idea by architecture and design firm Kino, five high-voltage transmission towers built in 1959 in Põhja-Tallinn would have been redesigned as part of the first section of the park.
Instead, the city commissioned the main design from another company, K-Projekt, which won the procurement and left the original idea unimplemented.
Juhan Teppart, a landscape architect at Kino, explained that when any kind of creative work is involved, the author must be able to say what happens to it next.
“Another designer continued the design work and then moved away from the original concept,” he said.
“Some things were taken from our project and some things were done differently. But that is not how it works. I cannot comment on why they moved away from it or why adaptations were made. This is a copyright violation issue. I understand that now they want to remove the towers entirely; that would be another violation if the idea is ignored and the authors are not consulted. The part of the project intended for people is still conveyed by an author,” Teppart said.
Tallinn Mayor Peeter Raudsepp (Isamaa) said he could not comment on the issue, adding that it is somewhat surprising.
Raudsepp: The towers are old and worn out
Raudsepp said the city government decided to remove the transmission towers on December 19 of last year. At the same time, the city also canceled the design competition for tower installations that was then underway.
The mayor claimed that preserving a single tower would cost up to €60,000, totaling nearly €300,000 for all five towers.
“I have not considered that calculation reasonable because they serve no purpose,” Raudsepp said.
“These are old and worn-out towers. Perhaps for some viewers, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I fear most people do not see it that way. It is an additional cost to the city’s taxpayers, an additional risk for the city as to what will happen to them in the future, because then no one will come and remove them for free. A completely new tower could be built for about half the price,” he noted.
The mayor acknowledged that the real exception would be if the towers were left standing. He also said that the grid operator that owns the towers, Elering, is willing to remove them and level the land afterward. Therefore, Tallinn would not have to pay for anything, Raudsepp added.
However, Teppart said each tower could be evaluated separately and the structures could be preserved in a way that would prevent further deterioration. The architect stressed that the towers do not have to remain completely intact; they could also be partially dismantled and preserved in some form, with a new function found for them.
“Perhaps those decisions could be left to future people who have more ideas or more desire to deal with values such as park space or the identity of the area,” he said.
Proposed lighting solution was never built
The architect said that if the towers are demolished, residents will lose important landmarks connected with the history of the area.
“There used to be railroad tracks there, then high-voltage towers replaced them, and now there is the Pollinator Highway, which is intended to empower people and improve their environment for health. Our wish was to show and preserve that same history,” Teppart said.
He described the solutions they had proposed in the draft design, including an observation platform and a playground connected to the structure of one of the tall towers. Another option was to have climbing plants grow on the towers or to build greenhouses there. A lighting solution also played a key role in the plans of Kino’s architects.
“The project called for suspended lighting, making use of the large towers. There would have been additional poles, but the cables would not have been underground; the lights would have been attached to wires,” Teppart said. “Instead, what was built was a standard, more ordinary solution – a great many light poles, while the towers remained unused,” he added.
However, Raudsepp believes the transmission towers are above all a technical structure and that it is not appropriate to approach them with too much imagination.
“I dare say that any idea of what to do with these towers would never be realized in real life. That is because these towers were never intended for everything. They were intended for one thing – carrying power lines,” he stressed.
The power towers are located in Põhja-Tallinn near Sõle tänav, Ehte tänav, Puhangu tänav and Kaera tänav.
The plan to include the old towers in the Pollinator Highway project remained in force under the previous Tallinn city government led by Social Democrat Jevgeni Ossinovski, but faded last year when a new administration formed by Isamaa and the Center Party took power.
A plan to preserve and repurpose the power towers was also submitted to this year’s Tallinn participatory budget.
—
Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!
