Olympic dreams and a village for tech students
Financial difficulties and gaining popular support
The Otaniemi plot was owned by the state, instead of the Technical University Student Union (later TKY), and the state rented the plot to TKY. This immediately left the teekkarit in a significantly worse position compared to the Student Union of University of Helsinki (HYY), which was at the same time preparing the construction of Domus Academica in Helsinki. HYY was able to buy the plot of Domus Academica from the state on favorable terms and was thus able to take out a loan against the plot. At the same time, teekkarit didn't get a loan, so they had to get the money themselves.
The ingenious tempaus-happening of the teekkarit and the ability to work towards a common goal came to the rescue. And there were indeed goals. From the Otaniemi campus area, TKY's financial contribution was calculated to be a whopping FIM 1.5 million - this corresponded to approximately 49.5 million euros in 2007, according to Panu Nykänen's book. The sum included the student council building, dormitories to accommodate 2,000 students, staff apartments, maintenance buildings, and support for the newly founded Otaniemi Sports Foundation. A decades-long job lay ahead.
New ideas were needed to get all possible support behind this huge goal. The idea of combining the Teekkarikylä and the Olympic Village behind the same fundraising came up even before the Second World War as Finland was preparing to gain the Summer Olympics for Helsinki. The 1940 Summer Olympics, which were moved to Helsinki from Japan, were cancelled due to the Winter War, but after the II World War, a new opportunity was expected. The athletes coming to the Olympics needed housing, and Finland, which suffered from a housing shortage, could offer such in the form of the brand new Teekkarikylä for up to 2,500 athletes.
In 1950, Master Viherjuuri, a young expert in the advertising industry, was hired as the driving force behind the project. The main idea of the advertising campaign was to gain popular opinion behind the Teekkarikylä project by visibly tying activities to the Finnish Olympic project. At the same time, the joint campaign gave impetus to fundraising for all stakeholders.
Marketing, pantyhose, and more tempaus´!
So how was the money raised? Naturally, mostly by doing tempaus´, but also by arranging civic fundraisers, asking donations from the business world, and by making charity deals, which also helped to get permissions to sell desired imported products subject to regulation. The teekkarit had their own driving school and the shops sold Teekkari oranges, Teekkari Nylon socks, Teekkari candies and Teekkari matches. TKY also cooperated with the Student Union of the Helsinki School of Economics in, for example, selling spice and importing American cars.
The project also had visible celebrity supporters, e.g. in November 1950, Wäinö Aaltonen gave TKY the exclusive rights to sell the miniature model of the Paavo Nurmi statue situated in front of the Olympic Stadium in the name of the Olympic and Teekkarikylä projects.
Planning the Campus and the Teekkarikylä
The zoning and planning phase of Teekkarikylä itself started as soon as the land deals in Otaniemi were confirmed. The main responsibility for the design of the campus area went to Alvar Aalto's architectural office, which won the design competition with the plan "ALMA MATER, Morituri te salutant". TKY, on the other hand, chose Heikki Siren as the designer of Teekkarikylä.
The zoning and planning of Teekkarikylä and the surrounding areas were also reflected in the activities of the university, as students were assigned numerous training assignments related to the development of Otaniemi from the late 1940s onwards. Examples of these can be found both in the University thesis collection and in the image collections of the Department of Architecture.
For example, Leo Huttunen's diploma work "Otaniemi sports center" from 1949 and Jaakko Rastas's diploma work "Plan for building a road from Kuusisaari via Lehtisaari to Otaniemi on the border between the city of Helsinki and the municipality of Espoo" from 1950 are good examples of plans made by students.
Preparing for the Olympic Village
The agreement to operate as an Olympic village was finally made in 1951, and Teekkarikylä's apartments, sports field and Otahalli were completed just in time. Preparing for the Olympics was also a big effort in terms of catering, and TKY had to make significant investments in the restaurant infrastructure to be able to take care of the nutrition of the athletes.
There were also international cooperation in the preparations, after the Polytechnic choir's trip to America, when in 1951 the organization for a “Canadian Camp” began in cooperation with Nicholas Ignatieff, the director of the University of Toronto's Hart House. The Canadian students stayed in Finland for six weeks and the construction of a beach sauna in Teekkarikylä was selected as the project’s target.
Otaniemi as the Olympic Village of the Eastern Block
At the time of the Olympics, Otaniemi was inhabited by athletes from socialist countries at the request of the Soviet Union - in remote Otaniemi, the competitors of the Eastern Bloc could live in peace without unnecessary western influences.
Soviet athletes and Teekkarikylä's beach sauna are also connected to a conflict from the time of the Olympics. Ignatieff, who led the mentioned Canadian expedition to Finland, had died suddenly just before the Olympics, and the Canadians delivered a bronze commemorative plaque to be placed in the beach sauna in the memory of the visit. The commemorative plaque was inaugurated by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh who visited the Olympics, and whose arrival the Soviet athletes tried to prevent by blocking the way to the sauna. However, the plaque was put in place and the sauna had a worthy memory of the Canadian guests.
Campus project in full swing
The students' active influence on public opinion played a very significant role in getting the Teekkarikylä project itself and its funding started with the favourable contribution of the Olympics, and the construction of the Otaniemi area in full swing.
The buildings related to teaching at the University of Technology began to be completed slowly during the 1950s. The first laboratory building, a test sawmill and drying plant, was put into use in January 1955. Alvar Aalto's office started planning the main building of the college in 1953, and the building now known as the Graduate Centre was inaugurated in 1966, when the University of Technology finally moved entirely to Otaniemi.
Although the Olympic project played a significant role in the early stages of the Otaniemi campus area, there is no image material directly related to the Olympics in the Aalto University Archives, and the Olympics are not mentioned at all, for example, in the university's annual reports from the early 1950s. Instead, images and other material should be found in the collections of the Student Culture Museum of the AYY.
Text: Susanna Kokkinen
Sources:
Annual reports of the University of Technology 1940-1953.
Hartikainen, Olli-Pekka: Otaniemen urheilusäätiö 40 vuotta - 1950-1990.
Nykänen, Panu: Otaniemen yhdyskunta - Teknillinen korkeakoulu 1942-2008. WSOY 2007.
Nykänen, Panu & Kohonen, Iina: Tupsukansab koti - yli 50 vuotta teekkarikylän historiaa. Gummeruksen kirjapaino Oy 2003.