BRINGING EDUCATION TO THE CORE: THE STRUCTURAL ROLE OF THE SCHOOL IN THE EXPERIMENTAL CITY OF TAPIOLA

Abstract

Planned in 1945 and built between 1952 and 1968, the Finnish city of Tapiola was intended as an urban laboratory in which to test, on a reduced scale, solutions applicable to the reconstruction process of the country after World War II. Concern for children guided research from the very beginning, finding its primary drive in the collective desire to move towards a cohesive and democratic society, the foundation on which this reconstruction was to be based. In this context, the humanist thought of Lewis Mumford, who summoned the reader of The Culture of Cities to place education at the center of the reflection on the city, had a great impact on Finnish urbanism, an influence that can be clearly reflected in the final configuration of Tapiola. The purpose of this article is to analyze this initiative with a view to identifying and critically assessing the design strategies guiding the implementation of Mumford’s theoretical principles in the case study. This approach allows for an examination of a well-known experience from a different perspective: childhood and education as categories of analysis, which reveals the great transforming capacity of such concepts and their central role in any reconsideration of the city whose purpose is the humanization of the built space.