The Tampere Central Fire Station ( fi, Tampereen keskuspaloasema) is a

fire station __NOTOC__ A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire ...

located at Satakunnankatu 16 in the

Jussinkylä Jussinkylä (also known as Juhannuskylä) is a neighbourhood in the city center of Tampere, Finland. It is located east of Tammerkoski and borders Satakunnankatu in the south. To the east and northeast, the district is bounded by a railway and to ...

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, on the eastern shore of

Tammerkoski Tammerkoski is a channel of rapids in Tampere, Finland. The city of Tampere is located between two lakes, Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. The difference in altitude between these two is and the water flows from Näsijärvi to Pyhäjärvi through ...

. The Art Nouveau-style fire station building, completed in 1908, was designed by architect Wivi Lönn.

History

A permanent fire brigade was established in Tampere on 5 July 1898, and a voluntary fire brigade had been established in the city as early as 1873. The permanent fire brigade initially operated in temporary premises in the merchant Axel Siren's house at Puutarhakatu 6. A estate of land was built for the building along Satakunnankatu in 1903, and in 1905 a fire station design competition was held, which was won in February 1906 by architect Wivi Lönn. The

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...

's fire station in Sweden must have been used as an example in the design of the fire station.

Design and construction

The station was originally designed for

horse-drawn A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have m ...

equipment and the horse stables and equipment hall were located in the curved center of the station. Architect Berndt Blom, who acted as Tampere's firefighter, also contributed to the

functional design Functional Design is a paradigm used to simplify the design of hardware and software devices such as computer software and, increasingly, 3D models. A functional design assures that each modular part of a device has only one responsibility and pe ...

of the station.Arkkitehti_Berndt_Blom,_''Aamulehti
'',_June_12,_1932,_no._157,_p._3,_Kansalliskirjaston_digitaaliset_aineistot.html" ;"title="Aamulehti">Arkkitehti Berndt Blom, ''Aamulehti
'', June 12, 1932, no. 157, p. 3, Kansalliskirjaston digitaaliset aineistot">Aamulehti">Arkkitehti Berndt Blom, ''Aamulehti
'', June 12, 1932, no. 157, p. 3, Kansalliskirjaston digitaaliset aineistot(in Finnish) Construction work on the fire station began in April 1907 and the building was commissioned on September 30, 1908. Completion of the building was delayed by four months on the construction site on Christmas Eve 1907 due to a fire that broke out. The building was made of brick but also used reinforced concrete structures. The facades were upholstered in granite. The fire station also included a fire tower. In the 1920s, alterations were carried out at the fire station according to the plans of Tampere city architect Bertel Strömmer, when cars replaced horse-drawn equipment. In this context, the curved central part of the building was also raised by one floor, which was occupied by crew quarters. In 1982, a red-brick annex was completed for the fire station on the Palokunnankatu side and then for the fire station's so-called the old part was renovated in 1983–1986.

Museum

The Tampere Fire Museum ( fi, Tampereen palomuseo), founded in 1998, is located in the basement of the Central Fire Station. The renovated fire museum was opened to the public on the 2019 Tampere Day.

References

External links

Tampere Central Fire Station
at Visit Tampere (in Finnish)
Tampere Central Fire Station
at Virtual Tampere Buildings and structures by Finnish architects Buildings and structures in Tampere Emergency services in Finland Fire stations completed in 1908 Jussinkylä Tourist attractions in Tampere {{WesternFinland-geo-stub