Introduction

Background

The combination of visual arts and architecture is an age-old phenomenon in public space. Its roots can already be seen in the distant past, when the first cave painter reached for earth pigments, for the surrounding space as a canvas has always inevitably intrigued human nature. A new epoch in public space art, however, began after the Second World War.

After the war ended, the shaken-up world began slowly gathering and rebuilding itself. The lack of housing enkindled by the 19th century Industrial Revolution now erupted into an unavoidable crisis due to war damage, migration, and the reformation of countries’ home affairs. Relief came through improved construction techniques and materials, such as building panels, the industrial mass production of which accelerated after the war, and which enabled the fast and relatively cheap construction of entire housing estates.

The spread of panel houses, however, soon gave rise to pressing questions about the mutual interaction between architecture and man. The practice of decorating architecture with visual arts was rediscovered as one solution – a technique also implemented in pre-war architecture. The symbiosis of visual arts and architecture – a synthesis of arts – earned increasingly widespread attention in public discussions and literature of the field. Le Corbusier and other leading architects and theorists found that the act of construction does not merely hold a necessity purpose – instead, urban planning and fields related to it must provide people with an inspiring and emotionally supportive environment.

It was concurrently decided that the best ‘tool’ for synthesising architecture and art is monumental-decorative arts, meaning art that ties directly to architecture and is widely interpretable. One can say that in the centuries following the war, modern architecture globally became a canvas of a sort, on which one could seek their roots, express views, exercise artistic ambitions, realise the aesthetics enforced by the foreign power or all the aforementioned at once.

Optimism of the Khrushchev Thaw

After the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1944, the official local cultural life was ruled by the doctrine of socialist realism. In the case of urban development, this meant extravagant neoclassicism, with heavy emphasis on monumental painting and large-scale murals. The chef-d’oeuvre of Stalinist art synthesis in Estonia is the ceiling painting of the Estonian National Opera, done on a dry plaster surface by Elmar Kits, Evald Okas and Richard Sagrits in 1947. Honourable mentions among the surviving artworks are also canvas paintings Tallinna vaade (“View Over Tallinn”, 1955) and Moskva vaade (“View over Moscow”, 1955) by Richard Sagrits and Viktor Karrus, which currently reside in the old Tallinn Airport, and Valli Lember-Bogaktina’s ceramic mosaic pannel Lähme suurele peole! (“Let Us Go to a Big Celebration!” 1950), which was initially displayed in the Estonian National Opera’s buffet and which is stored in the rooms of the Estonian Song Festival Ground’s stage building since 2003.

There was a radical shift in the Soviet construction policy after a 1954 union-wide discussion between constructers, architects, and construction material manufacturers, in which Nikita Khrushchev declared the existing architecture lavish and elitist. In the early 1960s, this launched an extensive residential development in the Soviet Union, the central concept of which became the microdistrict. The microdistricts constructed with building panels were popularised through the image of the modern and mobile Soviet youth – the brand new living spaces with amenities were accompanied by shops, schools, restaurants, and healthcare establishments just within reach. These identical residential buildings created a backdrop, next to which individual unique architectural masterpieces – public buildings finished with monumental-decorative arts – would stand out.

The first building in Tallinn to receive a sgraffito pediment was Kalev Sports Hall (Valli Lember-Bogatkina, Margareta Fuks; 1962). A year prior, The Narva Jõesuu Medical Spa was completed, with a façade and vestibule also decorated by Valli Lember-Bogatkina’s supple vacationer figures. Unlike the Stalinist synthesis, the motifs of the monumental artworks of the Thaw were predominantly apolitical. For example, in 1963, Dolores Hoffmann completed a fresco painting for the cinema Rahu (Peace), which depicted a peaceful scene of fishers early in the morning, instead of a fight for peace. When the Estonian Television Building was built in 1965, the sculpture Telesilm (“Tele-Eye”), Igor Balašov’s final project in the metal arts department of the Estonian Academy of Arts, was installed on its façade.

Moreover, the public space art of the 1960s is characterised by the passionate interest that artists had in experimenting with techniques and materials. Notable masterpieces of the decade became Lagle Israel’s depiction of the ancient Estonians’ starry sky, Tähekaart (“Celestial Map”, 1962–64), made of sea stones, and displayed at the Tartu Observatory, and Lepo Mikko’s scientific-technical revolution themed ceramic pannel displayed in the lobby of the library in the ESSR Academy of Sciences (1964). Aside from that, Mikko’s contribution to monumental painting is also seen in the form of his decades-long employment as a lecturer at the painting department of the Estonian Academy of Arts, where he instructed many later monumental artists. At times, monumental-decorative arts found its way into the identically built residential buildings: The building walls on Akadeemia tee in Mustamäe (Lember-Bogatkina, Fuks, Enn Põldroos) have become a paradigm of this genre. Less-known examples of such works can be seen in the Karjamaa subdistrict.

A significant mastery of monumental painting was achieved by Elmar Kits, who made his first attempts at the genre already in 1938, when he helped Aleksander Vardi execute the large-scale oil painting (restored) on the main hall wall of the Estonian Students Society. The most successfully executed ensemble of his monumental paintings is the sgraffito in the restaurant Tarvas (1965). Kits’s frescoes in the Keava Animal Breeding Centre of the Kehtna collective farm (1969), his sgraffito Kolm neidu (“Three Maidens”, 1970) in the Yuri Gagarin Model State Farm Technical School (now Viljandi Vocational Training Centre) and the antemortem magnum opus Viljalõikuspidu (“Reaping Party”, 1971) in the main building of the Riisipere state farm were key events in the painting scene at the time.

National Committee for Monumental-Decorative Arts

Despite the ever-spreading production of monumental arts in the 1960s, artists, art scholars and officials were not content with its somewhat anarchic position – the commission of monumental art was random and lacked central management. The situation changed at the end of the decade when cooperation between the Estonian Artists’ Association, Union of Estonian Architects and the National Committee of Construction and Architecture led to the formation of an expert group with a dragged-out name characteristic of the time – the ESSR National Monumental-Decorative Arts Committee of the Council of Ministers at the Estonian SSR Ministry of Culture. Although the Committee operated in the rooms of the Ministry of Culture daily, it must be recognised that it obeyed the Council of Ministers, that is, the equivalent of the “prime minister” at the heart of the executive branch (more specifically his first assistant).

The statute of the Committee claimed that it was formed to develop the synthesis of monumental-decorative arts and architecture, to elevate the styling standard of towns and other settlements, squares, parks, and public buildings, and to direct the creation of monumental-decorative arts conceptually and artistically. Among members were representatives of creative unions, the Estonian Academy of arts, research institutes, ministries, and executive committees. Over the years, many experts of their field actively partook in the work of the Committee, which gathered almost weekly until the dissolution of the Soviet regime. Among others, the list included Voldemar Herkel, Mart Port, Ilmar Torn, Vello Asi, Väino Tamm, Jaak Soans, Salme Raunam, Leo Gens, Dmitri Bruns, Udo Ivask, Jutta Matvei, Lepo Mikko, Allan Murdmaa, Valve Pormeister, Bruno Tomberg and Enn Põldroos.

One of the Committee’s first achievements was passing Põldroos’s mosaic Noorus (“Youth”) to the main building of Tallinn Polytechnic Institute. In 1971, the Committee arranged the decoration of the new Estonian Radio Building, commissioning an abstract pannel design from Enn Põldroos, which was installed with the help of Olev Subbi, Lemmit Sarapuu, Rein Siim and Andres Tolts. Additionally, Riho Kuld’s plexiglass sculpture Raadiotuvi (“Radio Dove”) was mounted on the façade. A number of decorative-monumental artworks related to architecture were created throughout the years under the Committee’s supervision and with funding from the Ministry of Culture, notably: the interior design of the Viru Hotel restaurant with Mari Adamson’s tapestry, and ceiling lights by Aet Andresma-Tamme and Mare Lobjaka (1972), Rait Prääts’s stained glass windows for the museum-concert hall of Niguliste Church (St. Nicholas’ Church, 1972), Eva-Aet Jänes’s fresco in Rakvere Veterinary Centre (1976) and sgraffito for the central building of the Põdrangu state farm (1978), Robert Suvi’s coloured glass mosaic pannel in the lobby of the Magdaleena Unit of the East Tallinn Central Hospital (1980), the abstract pannel covering a wall at the Tallinn Olympic Yachting Centre (Leo Rohlin, 1980) and the decorative wall in the Centre’s restaurant on the fifth floor (Andresma-Tamm, Mare Lobjakas, 1980), and Põldroos’s gigantic tapestry curtain in the Tallinn City Hall (1985).

In addition to decorative pieces, the Committee invested a lot of time and energy into the matter of statues, monuments, and memorials. On one hand, the erection of new statues was organized (for example, Ülo Stöör and Renaldo Veeber’s monument Sakalamaa kaitsjatele 1217–1223 (“To the Protectors of Sakala 1217–1223”) was completed with the Committee’s mediation in 1969), on the other hand the construction of unnecessary and artistically immature statues was limited. Organising urgent competitions often helped. The Monumental Arts Committee also managed to deal with long-term planning to some extent, as the National Committee of Construction and Architecture provided them with a list of properties to be built in the future, for which the commission of monumental painting was agreed upon early on (Tallinn City Hall, Tallinn Olympic Yachting Centre, Sakala Centre, Tartu University Library).

Let it be mentioned that it was not just the Ministry of Culture that arranged the commission of monumental painting. The lion’s share of the pieces was created independently from the Ministry and was mostly executed by the Estonian SSR Art Fund’s factory ARS in Tallinn and ARS’s factory in Tartu, to whom clients turned independently. Many collective farms, factories and other establishments had their own hired artists or even artist brigades. For example, Ukrainian descent Mark Kalpin created numerous monumental paintings onto the territory of the Tartu Widget Factory during his decades-long employment there. One of them resides in the rooms of what is currently the bar Sodiaak. It also occurred that artists were turned to privately for example in the case of Urve Dzidzaria’s fresco Aeg elada maa peal (“Time to Live with Both Feet On the Ground”, 1986) in the 9th May collective farm clubhouse in Väätsa, and Allika juurde jõuda (“To Reach the Source”, 1989) in the clubhouse of the Automotive Transport and Service Hub in Paide.

Taking the aforementioned into account, it can be said that while the monumental-decorative art of the 1960s was quite experimental, and there was a dominance of optimistic visuals characteristic of the decade due to the economic, technical-scientific, and cultural prosperity of the Soviet Union, the overall appearance of the genre in the 1970s was fairly different. The stagnating economy, 1968. events in Prague, destruction of the traditional living environment and sovietisation of societal life created a context in which Estonian art, and specifically monumental-decorative art, took upon themselves a considerably different role than that of the previous decade. Although the field of monumental arts became overall more professional, this did not bring about any notable technical experiments or unseen masterpieces. Instead, the focus shifted to prioritising oneself, the local natural environment, residents, and heritage through great artistic expertise.

The 1980s

The 1980s saw a reformation in architecture, urban design, and public space art on both sides of the Iron Curtain as a result of the postmodern revolution. In Tallinn this was led by supergraphics. Multiple noteworthy supergraphics pieces using Urmas Mikk’s designs were created on Tatari 4 (1990, destroyed), and Liivalaia 3 (1987, destroyed), Leonhard Lapin’s designs were created onto the former Tallinn Thermal Power Station wall (1987, destroyed), Rein Kelpman’s design on a wall on Vana-Posti 2 (1987, destroyed), and many more. The artistic success of these and many other supergraphics pieces places the monumental painting of previous decades, tangled in its own difficulty, in an almost unfair light. One must keep in mind that the authors of the 1980s operated in a considerably more favourable atmosphere when it came to creating designs.

The seminal ground of postmodernism further inspired works synthesising architecture and art even more sharply: Kuldne kodu (“Golden Home”, architect Toomas Rein, interior architectonics L. Lapin, 1973) in Pärnu KEK (Collective Farm Construction Office), Pärnu KEK kindergarten (interior design Toomas Rein and Helle Gans, playgrounds’ design Sirje Lapin (Runge), 1975–78), Tallinn Post Office’s interactive sculpture (Kaarel Kurismaa, 1982; completely destroyed), and the Aruküla manor, renovated with the help of Lapin’s intimate knowledge of history, with its clever monumental painting Panteon (“Pantheon”, 1989). The monumental-decorative art of Soviet Estonia was thus far directed by artistic pursuits and a search for new art techniques, experiments with form, playing with interior design and perhaps to some extent ideological control. Therefore, it is somewhat ironic that, in a fashion, the punch-line of the genre ended up being Evald Okas’s clearly predominantly ideologically themed 42.7 metre high secco-painting Rahvaste sõprus (“Friendship of the Nations”, 1987) in Maarjamäe Palace, built for the History and Revolution Museum of the Estonian SSR.

Gregor Taul, Anu Soojärv