Asuntosäätiö’s valuable materials now published in search service Finna

The neighbourhoods constructed by Asuntosäätiö in Espoo include Tapiola, Soukka and Kivenlahti. Tapiola is currently undergoing major changes, but remains a highly valued garden city district with internationally recognised landscape design and building architecture. The area is a matter of pride in Espoo, and Tapiola’s residents have an extremely strong sense of local identity. Furthermore, the seaside communities of Kivenlahti and Soukka are also fine examples of excellent community planning.

Lead by Heikki von Hertzen, Asuntosäätiö was actively involved in communication and education with a passion never before seen in Finland, creating an irreplaceably extensive collection of photographs and other documents. The document archive contains correspondence, newspaper cuttings, memoranda, architectural drawings and brochures, among other things. Tapiola, in particular, was frequently photographed and presented to state visitors from its earliest days. The collection includes approximately 4,000 photographs, roughly 1,000 colour slides and audiovisual material in various formats. Espoo City Museum has now made the first group of high-quality photographs, captured by professional photographers, available in Finna. So far, Finna has published 1,042 photographs and 174 documents. Asuntosäätiö donated most of the old archive to Espoo City Museum’s public collection in 2014.