last tallinnn night 9 july

Franziska I think particularly but maybe also Steve had persuaded me to visit the Linnahall a few days previously despite my ignorant dismissal... and I was shown to be a dufus, because it was amazing. This time I had suggested visiting the cemetery park near where we were staying (Steve and I had walked past it and observed that it looked like a cemetery though we couldn't quite say why as it had no tombstones, but about 30 seconds' research showed that is precisely what it had been). But Franziska had suggested going a little further afield as well and I knew this would be a good idea even if I didn't know why. 

First of all, just wanted to show you what a few years' exposure to the ice and rain of Tallinn can do to the wooden bits of a building. It's not pretty is it! 

Yet the building itself is amazeballs

Couldn't get a proper picture of it because there was a big fat white van in the way, but you are probably satisfied with Tallinn house pictures by now. 

First, we went past what I later discovered was the cemetery belltower (I'll leave the story of the cemetery park for tomorrow OK). Elegant construction. I am ashamed (?) to say at first I thought it was an aesthetic disguise on something very utilitarian like a sewer duct. 

This is the only cemetery marker I could see in the cemetery (I later discovered I was looking in the wrong place):

This is where we were really headed though. I have no idea what's happening with this building other than what I can see - that it has trees growing in it.

But this is the really amazing thing. It's huge. The sum total of what I know about it is all here. 

And there's the Linnahall off in the not-very-distant distance. 

What do you think this is or was? I just like the way the pixelated waves look. 

We walked back along the waterfront a little. 

New apartments over old infrastructure. And below, back in the cemetery park. 

Steve was pretty interested in this building's balconies and I get it. 

9 july tallinn - 3 or is it 4?

Finland but even moreso Estonia (with its teensy population, many of whom don't actually speak Estonian) has a really impressive print media. How many Estonian vegans are there really, or even vegan-friendly Estonians? I can't imagine. Anyway, there are at least five, who I saw hanging out here. I recommend this place: 

A couple more houses. Don't worry, there are more to come after this:

architecture museum, estonia

After the art museum Franziska went back to the accomm as she and Steve had been to the architecture museum the day before when I was in Tartu. 

So much great stuff here, in some ways it's even more innovative than the art museum but let's not make it a competition. 

 The main (?) ground floor area of this museum has a lot of models - really exceptional.

One of the models is a commissioned (?) or at least purpose-built art piece of a model of a high-rise residential complex with a script attached describing perspectives of stakeholders. 

Then there's a children's exhibition, in the basement, which should be compulsory for all attendees, it asks (and answers?) the hard questions...

Upstairs is an exhibition of work by the architect Miia Masso, a fascinating career from the 60s to the present day, like the art in the museum, it feels like a parallel universe, not always looking to the rest of the world. But of it. 

All in all really impressive stuff. I am not sure which out of the art or the architecture museums I enjoyed more. 

Well, the architecture museum was not just a museum but also a resource on Estonian architecture and I gleaned a little bit of information on Ernst Kesa, who I had never been able to get much background on in Australia. He was an Estonian refugee to Australia in the 1940s whose best-known Australian work, I think, is Nauru House. 

tallinn 9 july - 2 - kumu

Anyway after that Steve wasn't feeling that well (sore throat) so just Franziska and I went to Kumu, the art gallery. Not the old art but the new art - starting in about 1600 I think. 

The top floor was all new responding-to-digital-age art which was more interesting than I've described it (though I admit I've described it badly). Like this installation by Timo Toots called Neural Nectar, 'a metaphor for the age of artifical intelligence'. Toots 'created the wax and honey sculptures... in collaboration with bees in the summer of 2025 at the bee art laboratory in the tech and art laboratory Maajaam, near Otepää, in southern Estonia.'

There was, actually, some very fine material on this floor. I mean it only scratches the surface of the 'psychotic' or whatever you call it nature of what we're living through/in but it works well. I have to say I wanted to retreat to the past however (particularly, Estonia's past grapplings with totalitarianism).

Siima Škop, 'Õpime, et ehitada!' ('We study to build!') 1952. Beautiful propaganda poster. 

Viktor Karrus and Roman Treuman, 'Socialistliku võistluse väljakutse vabariigi traktroistidele' ('Tractor drivers taking up the challenge of socialist competition') 1951

Elmar Kits, 'Arutelu Kunstnike Liidus' ('Discussion at the Artists' Union') 1947.

Evald Okas 'Uus Lin' ('New Town') 1965

Nikolai Kormašov 'Raudbetoon' ('Reinforced Concrete') 1965

Henn Roode 'Demonstratsioon' ('Demonstration') 1963.

I must say this really had an impact on me, though I don't find it as attractive as many of the others, but the way Roode has put in that busy band of faces in there is really impressive.

Johannes Greenberg 'Töölt' ('After work') 1941. 

Valve Janov, 'Kala Karlova kohal' ('Fish Above Karlova') 1965

Look let's face it - basically everything in here was incredible! There was a freshness to it, even the soviet-era stuff, that didn't just feel like work executed under something the world was going through, but something peculiarly local. I loved it.

This is Mart Viljus' 1997 installation 'Trademarks'. It's excellent in execution and concept. Look at some of these 'products'... the trademarks/branding is real, but it's on the 'wrong' product. Great take. 

(you know Fazer makes chocolate, right?)

Now for the feedback:

I almost stole the picture of the star-headed person below but I guess, well, I sort of have stolen it anyway right. 

Basically I don't think I can really do KUMU justice in either text or photos but it wasn't just the great building, etc it was the ambience of the work which opened up perspectives on world history via Estonian history and really felt like the tip of the iceberg. 

On to... the architecture museum!