The Change in Planned Nomenclature in Vuosaari, Helsinki

The change in planned nomenclature in Vuosaari, Helsinki

Jani VUOLTEENAHO, Terhi AINIALA and Elina WIHURI

1. Introduction In terms of general visibility and the functioning of cities as spatial systems, the most prominent names in the urban landscape are those belonging to the planned nomenclature. The planned names differ from the traditional ones which have their origin in a spontaneous use of language. Traditionally, people have talked about places important for, e.g., working, living, and traveling by referring to them by names of their own invention. In modern urban environments, however, planned names are utilized for a variety of administrative as well as everyday purposes. At least in the bulk of cases, these names have not been originally coined by local residents. Instead, the norm is that a local authority has created and officially sanctioned the names. This article examines planned nomenclature in the urban environment. The study on which the article is based is part of a larger research project entitled “The transformation of the sociolinguisti- cally diversifying neighbourhoods of Helsinki” in which the urban onomastic landscape is studied both linguistically and geographi- cally (Ainiala & Vuolteenaho 2006). The full study covers not only official and planned names but also everyday and unofficial names used by city dwellers. The unofficial names are, nevertheless, not discussed in this article. Besides Finnish nomenclature, we consider examples from continental European and Nordic urban settings in the theoretical section of the article. The focus of this article is on town plan names and housing corporation names. The town plan names are names that have been planned specifically and authoritatively for a planned area within a town. Typically they are names of city districts, streets, squares, and parks (Viljamaa-Laakso 1999a, 45–47). Town plan names and names for roads in sparsely populated areas in today’s Finland number about

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300,000 (Paikkala 2000, 27). Furthermore, the number of such names is growing as new urban areas are being built. Previously, urban place names have been scrutinized above all from the viewpoint of language planning. Different administrative instructions and recommendations about name giving to streets and other areas have been issued. In Finland, the most comprehensive guide book is Yhteinen nimiympäristömme: nimistönsuunnittelun opas [“Our common onomastic environment: a handbook of name planning”] (Paikkala, Pitkänen & Slotte 1999). Moreover, the development and history of name planning in different cities have been studied. The street names in bigger cities and, above all, the motifs behind naming have been examined. Several publications in Finland have addressed street names: e.g. Helsingin kadunnimet [“The street names of Helsinki”] (1970/1981, 1979, 1999). Furthermore, during the 21st century, the attitudes of urban dwellers towards the official names in their own surroundings have been the focus of several studies (e.g. Aalto 2002, Ainiala 2004, Päres-Schulman 2005, Yli-Kojola 2005). In Sweden a comparative study was made by Carina Johansson (2007). In these studies conducted in the spirit of ‘folk linguistics’ (see e.g., Niedzielski & Preston 2000) it has been noted, inter alia, that the descriptiveness of a name is being regarded as an important feature by local dwellers. The names of housing corporations are neither town plan names nor primarily even toponyms in the conventional sense of the term. Instead, they are place-bound commercial names given to the units of private dwellings in Finland (typically apartment blocks and terraced houses owned by a group of shareholders). Throughout the article, it has to be borne in mind that the naming of housing corporations is controlled by totally different (governmental trade registration) authorities than the planned toponymy of local governmental areas. Accord- ing to the Finnish act on business names, every housing corporation (henceforth abbreviated Hsg. Ltd) in Finland must have a name. Addi- tionally, a statute from 1990 determines that even a prefix expressing the locality (i.e. the home town) of the housing corporation must be included in the name. (Sjöblom 2006, 85, 187.)1 The names and name elements of housing corporations are being used in marketing and partly in everyday language use in the same way as toponyms while

1 The name of a home town (e.g. Helsinki) is not mentioned in the name examples of this article.

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referring to objects in the urban environment (Sjöblom 2000, 378; Sjöblom 2006, 20). Thus, they can be regarded as part of the official nomenclature in cities (Ainiala 2003, 209). The authoritatively planned and housing corporation nomenclatures, together with their relation to the urban development and city planning, have been hitherto studied only infrequently. This provides a general rationale for focusing on them in the present article. More specifically, we aim to describe how the name planning and naming practices related to the two urban name-types have changed in the course of four recent decades. As a research area we have chosen Vuosaari, a relatively new, fitfully grown seaside suburb in eastern- most Helsinki. Settled nowadays by 35,000 inhabitants, the district’s urbanization started more or less co-incidentally with its annexation to the Finnish capital in 1966. By a qualitative analysis of nearly 650 local names coined over the course of last decades, we are tracking underlying naming practices and motifs behind the development of its authoritatively planned and housing corporation nomenclatures. As a theoretical backup to the approach of this article, we will first elucidate certain important tendencies in the administrative naming practices. After that, the town plan names and the housing corporation names are analyzed as a part of urban development and city planning. Our analysis follows the chronological order from the 1960s to the present day. Finally, conclusions about the changes in the onomastic landscape are made and reasons for them considered.

2. Tendencies in administrative naming practices In medieval and early modern Europe, the founders of towns “did not worry about naming the streets” (Langenfelt 1954, 331). “Naming streets was everybody’s business in those days: no communal authority cared” (ibid.). In Swedish and Finnish towns, street names could change “almost as often as the owner of the major house at the beginning of a lane changed” (Harling-Kranck 2006, 219). Unstable place name usage based on local topographic features and prominent build- ings dotted local townscapes (Langenfelt 1954, 331–332). Since the second half of the eighteenth century, however, systematic nominatory reforms started to spread in Europe. In particular, the related practices of affixing of street signs and the alternate numbering of houses were adopted all across the continent, as is evinced by London and other

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English cities (1765), France outside Paris (1768), Copenhagen (1771), Geneva (1782), Paris (1805), Florence (1808), and Stockholm (only in 1832; in earlier decades the houses in the city had been numbered based on quarters) (Garrioch 1994, 37–38; Azaryahu 1996, 313; Har- ling-Kranck 2006, 230). In essence, the technocratic advantages of systematic naming became evident with an array of administrative functions: from postal delivery to property records management, the controlling of illegal housing construction, the recruitment of military troops, tax-collection, fire protection, policing, and so on. In subsequent centuries, in many respects a similar development has taken place in cities throughout the world (Farvacque-Vitkovic et al. 2005). Subsequently, the rise of a number of European nation-states in the tumultuous nineteenth century gave rise to an ideological aspect of toponymic modernization: the use of street, square and other urban place names to introduce nationalistic political messages into popular consciousness. In particular, honorific (re-)naming was no longer “limited to celebrating dynastic glory but … increasingly associated with nation-building measures” (Azaryahu 1996, 314), becoming a prominent symbolic socialization strategy. Commemorative place names were found useful tools in legitimating and naturalizing “existing power structures by linking the regime’s view of itself, its past and the world, with the seemingly mundane settings of everyday life” (Gill 2005, 481). Alongside single nominatory commemorations, a new model of thematic clustering—initiated in Paris in the early nineteenth century (Langenfelt 1954, 337; Harling-Kranck 2006, 217)— was also exploited. A major revision of Stockholm’s street nomenclature between 1885 and 1900, inter alia, was based on blatantly nationalistic, spatially clustered name-motifs of “patriotic and historical names”, “Nordic mythology”, “famous places near the city”, “the southern provinces”, “the northern provinces”, “famous Swed- ish authors” and “prominent men within technology and engineering” (Pred 1990, 126–129; see also Stahre et al. 1983; Johansson 2007). Symptomatically, the modern model of introducing non-local geographical names (typically borrowed from colonies or allied nations) into central urban namescapes was also embraced to serve nationalistic ends (Azaryahy 1996, 313; see also Langenfelt 1954, 337). However, any contextualization of the modernization of urban name planning in Europe in the course of the last two and half centuries would be seriously flawed without acknowledging the persistent

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importance of locally motivated names (Langenfelt 1954, 334–335, 338). In fact, as Azaryahy (1996, 326) remarks, even the history of commemorative naming has been “biased in favour of local history”, as “evident in the names of local dignitaries, most notably mayors, and local events that are commemorated in the street signs”. Neither has the exploitation of thematic clustering been restricted to the use of explicitly patriotic themes in the central quarters of cities. In the face of rapid urban growth and consequent need for names, its popularity has been rather based on its flexibility as a naming model. Through it, a countless number of (both propagandistic and less propagandistic) motifs—from nature to folk mythology and science—have been utilized in inventing names for newly built urban outskirts in particular. Notably, suburban names have been often drawn from local history or circumstances (see, e.g. Room 1992, 179–187; Närhi 1999, 23). As a result of intense suburbanization and a number of annexations—including that of Vuosaari in the mid-1960s—in the post-war Helsinki, for instance, the different kinds of cluster-based names nowadays cover up to 90 percent of the city’s suburbs’ nomenclature (Carpelan & Schul- man 1996, 51). In brief, the modernization of European urban name planning has displayed interests in administrative efficiency, in popular ideological education, as well as in aiding people to orient themselves in urban space. But in what ways is the current phase of urban development challenging the established official name planning practices? Are the current onomastic models under pressure as market-based place-promotion strategies run rife and local landscapes are remoulded by worldwide economic processes (see e.g., Harvey 1989; Ellin 1996)? Is the current phase of urban development producing increasingly market-oriented and fragmentary toponymies? So far, it seems that the administrative name planning procedures in European cities have not suffered dramatic setbacks in the face of economic and cultural globalization. Inevitably, however, the enhanced influence of economic boosterism in the local decision-making has changed the ideological context in which official name planning takes place. For example, name-planners in Finnish cities regret that “firms and comparable market forces seek license to bestow places and areas with exciting, favourable names, having nothing whatsoever to do with local geographical circumstances” (Harling-Kranck 2006, 243– 244). Marja Viljamaa-Laakso, a long-term planner of nomenclature

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in the City of Espoo, a neighbouring city of Helsinki, complains how commercialism runs nowadays rife across the namescapes of Finnish cities: Previous naming traditions and systems are disappearing /…/ In terms of urban development generally and the “history of ideas” behind local nomenclature in particular, we are living in the era of market economy, consultants and estate-based planning. In business, the importance of names has been increasingly recognized /…/ Companies often also seek to change [official] toponyms: construction firms and even municipalities view their production areas through the lenses of marketing, which often means that old nomenclature of places is seen as non-valid /…/ Novel names are often of foreign origin, pronouncing the advent of new times. (1999b, 82) Above notions on the history of the administrative management of urban toponymies evoke a range of intriguing questions regarding the development of Vuosaari’s namescape. In interpreting changes in local nomenclature and naming policies since the early 1960s, we utilize 383 town plan names and a comparative corpus of 255 housing corporation names. Our primary data has been collected from various sources (Helsingin kadunnimet 1970/1981; Helsingin kadunnimet 2 1979; Helsingin kadunnimet 3 1999; and the web-database of National Board of Patents and Registration and the Tax Administration at http:// www.ytj.fi). Our following analysis is based on a classification of each planned and housing corporation name given in Vuosaari—62 planned names and 17 housing corporation names given or suggested before Vuosaari’s annexation; 87 and 96 names respectively from 1966–85; 58 and 56 names respectively from 1986–95; and 176 and 86 names respectively from 1996–2005—the last date of our tabulation.

3. Planned and housing corporation names in Vuosaari 3.1. Years prior to the 1966 annexation The earliest known place names in Vuosaari (Nordsjö in Swedish; originally Norsö ‘Strait Isle’) date back to the 1540s (Kepsu 2005, 133–135; Helsingin kadunnimet 1970 and 1981, 24, 236–240). In the vernacular of local Swedish-speaking populace, names such as Ormudden (‘Snake Cape’) were attached to coastal flora, fauna, and

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topography, and on occasions to fishing and agriculture as well (Häst- holmen ‘Horse Isle’). In the subsequent centuries, a relatively minor portion of the area’s toponymy began to gain wider societal reso- nances, mirroring the tightening sway of the Swedish royal regime over local lives (Dråningholm ‘Queen’s Isle’), the growing military and economic status of nearby Helsinki, and the quarrying of local deposits for the construction of a nearby military fortification (Kalkhol- men ‘Lime Isle’). Since the nineteenth century, Helsinki’s new status as the capital of Finland, industrialization, steam boat traffic, and above all the utilization of Vuosaari’s coast as a recreation zone of upper-class villa-owners (Villa Solvik ‘Villa Sun Bay’, Villa Bardoft ‘Villa Pineneedle Scent’) added a further romanticized layer to the area’s namescape. On the whole, however, a vast majority of local toponymy remained characterized by prosaic ethos tied up with maritime nature and the locals’ traditional sea- and earth-bound sources of sustenance. Vuosaari’s gradual absorption into the urban planning system of Helsinki meant also a standardization of its spontaneously evolved traditional toponymy. In the early 1960s, the area departed from the casual land use planning system of its former parent commune, Hel- sinki Rural Municipality. Besides the City of Helsinki itself, a few businesses and private land-owners operating in the district also played roles in the process. In fact, it was Saseka Ltd—a construction mate- rial manufacturing enterprise named acronymicly after ‘sand’ (santa), ‘cement’ (sementti), and ‘lime’ (kalkki)—that requested the city- planners of Helsinki’s to draw up the district’s first town plan. In 1963, the County Administrative Board ratified this plan for central areas of Vuosaari (e.g. Schulman 2005, 10–11). In total, the pre- annexation town plan and its revisions and supplements comprised over sixty duplicate (both Finnish and Swedish, as provided by the law) street names (Helsingin kadunnimet 1970 and 1981, 236–40). Nevertheless, it has to be emphasized that the beginning of systematic name planning did not lead to a symbolic upheaval of Vuosaari’s earliest known toponymy. Rather just the opposite, the chosen principles of naming Vuosaari’s new streets fundamentally repeated the contents of its traditional toponymy. Indeed, one major category in the inaugural town plan nomenclature was composed of derivations from local toponyms often centuries old. For example, street names were forged, inter alia, from the area’s name itself

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(Vuosaarentie ‘Vuosaari Road’2), from the old village Rastböle (fi. Rastila) (Rastilantie ‘Rastila Road’, from the bay Kallvik (Kallvikintie ‘Kallvik Road’), from cape Leppäniemi (‘Alder Cape’) (Leppäniemen- tie ‘Leppäniemi Road’), and from the Uutela farm (Uutelantie ‘Uutela Road’). Even more commonly, there were newly tailored names from old themes such as “rowing and sailing vessels” (Airoparintie ‘Pair of Oars Road, Halkaisijantie ‘Jib Road’, Keulatie ‘Bow Road’, Peräsin tie ‘Rudder Road’), “seafaring” (Lokitie ‘Log Road’, Meriko- rttitie ‘Chart Road’) or “fishing tackles” (Pitkänsiimantie ‘Trawl Line Road’). Such names gave spatial coherence to the street network of the city’s forthcoming suburb. In a still another major name-category, the above principles of local onomastic borrowing and thematic clustering were combined: streets across central Vuosaari were named on the basis of island names in the surrounding archipelago (e.g. Kivisaarentie ‘Kivisaari (‘Stony Isle’) Road’, Koukkusaarentie ‘Koukkusaari (‘Hook Isle’) Road’). Overall, all the three above major name categories fulfilled the aims of the city’s contemporary suburban naming policy of providing locational information and paying homage to local history and nature. At the same time, many of Vuosaari’s proliferating housing corporations derived names from their location along the road network (Asunto Oy Kivisaarentie ‘Hsg. Ltd Kivisaari Road’), and so onomastic kinship between them and the planned toponymy became self- evident. However, other early housing corporations pursued a more idiosyncratic and semantically polyvalent naming strategy based on compounds that referred to both the local onomasticon and to the pursuit of thrift, or saving money (Asunto Oy Säästöpurje ‘Hsg. Ltd Budget Sailcloth’ (cf. Purjetie ‘Sailcloth Road’), Asunto Oy Säästösaari ‘Hsg. Ltd Budget Isle’). In all cases, the housing units in question were built under the auspices of locally influential Home-Savers’ Association (see, e.g. Hankonen 1994, 370–378; Schulman 2005, 11).

2 Throughout the article, English translations are presented besides the actual Finn- ish town plan and housing corporation names. All translations are by the authors. Every town plan name (in contrast to housing corporation names controlled by a different law) in Helsinki has a Swedish counterpart, but they are not presented here. It is worth mentioning that the oldest toponyms of the area are Swedish, since the oldest population was Swedish speaking (Kepsu 2005, 135). The first known Finnish names are from the nineteenth century.

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In essence, the spirit of saving money (including the association’s cheap loans and the collective participation in building operations) was inscribed into the landscape by the very names of these housing corporations. Thus, an important non-governmental actor behind Vuosaari’s early urbanization also left marks onto the district’s namescape.

3.2. Late 1960s to mid-1980s In the following two decades, both naming after already existing local old toponyms (Hevossaarentie ‘Hevossaari (‘Horse Isle’) Road’, Mus- talahdentie ‘Mustalahti (‘Black Bay’) Road’) and name-choices echo- ing the recently established thematic clusters (Isonmastontie ‘Main Mast Road’, Melontakuja ‘Canoeing Alley’, and Rysätie ‘Fish Trap Road’) continued in Vuosaari. Whether the city-planners completed the stock of street network nomenclature (Vuotie ‘Vuo (part of the area’s name Vuosaari) Road’), or baptized new light traffic routes (Märssypolku ‘Topsail Walk’) and recreational areas (Keulapuisto ‘Bow Park’), coinages that were seen as fitting to Vuosaari’s historical coastal identity were favoured. Very often, too, the housing corporations’ name-choices paralleled those of the planned nomenclature: Asunto Oy Isonmastontie 6 ‘Hsg. Ltd Main Mast Road 6’, Asunto Oy Airoparintie 13 ‘Hsg. Ltd Pair of Oars Road 13’ and the like, borrowed their names from the official toponymy. As long as the building of residential premises under the patronage of the Home-Savers’ Asso- ciation continued, many of them still championed the theme of saving money (Asunto Oy Säästöruori ‘Hsg. Ltd Budget Helm’). Towards the turn of the 1970s, however, this peculiar naming practice gradually waned. While the period as a whole can be characterized by the naming policy envisaged in the district’s pre-annexation planned nomenclature, some new features in naming emerged, as well. Among the curi- osities dissociated from the distant local past was the first commemorative name coined in Vuosaari, a park opened in central Vuosaari dedicated in 1978 to Martti Ilveskorpi (Ilveskorvenpuisto ‘Ilveskorpi Park’), an important early leader of the now defunct Home-Savers’ Association. In the 1970s, some new light traffic routes were also given terse names that described their functions rather historical references: Sorapolku (‘Gravel Path’) lead to a local sandpit, whereas Kun- topolku (‘Condition Path’) lead to a sports field. Interestingly, in some

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housing corporations’ names new types of allusions to the quality of housing began to gain popularity. For its part, Asunto Oy Aurinkopelto ‘Hsg. Ltd Sunfield’ played with metaphorical meanings of pleasant weather without any obviously local references. Since the mid-1970s, associative generic terms like hovi ‘court’ (Asunto Oy Poijuhovi ‘Hsg. Ltd Buoy Court’) and kartano ‘mansion’ (Asunto Oy Rastilankartano ‘Hsg. Ltd Mansion Rastila’) were also adopted to evoke prestigious connotations hitherto not seen in Vuosaari’s housing corporation nomenclature. As said, however, Vuosaari’s onomastic development as a whole still followed the patterns set forth in the early 1960s. The planning of its official nomenclature, in particular, was accompanied with a rep- etitiously localist and traditional symbolic register. In its own way, the decision by city-planners to develop Vuosaari’s onomastic identity around its coastal nature and sea-related livelihoods reflected the district’s status as one of the satellite neighbourhoods in a regulated city planning system (see Schulman 1990, 116, 120). Up to the mid-1980s, deliberately fashionable or market-oriented names were quite simply unthinkable in the minds of the planning authorities of Helsinki.

3.3. Late 1980s to mid-1990s After twenty years of planning disputes (Schulman 2005, 13), the roughly concurrent building projects of Meri-Rastila (‘Sea Rastila’) and Kallahti on the district’s southern seafront at the turn of the 1990s initiated the second major phase in Vuosaari’s urbanization. For its part, the erection of Meri-Rastila did not yet lead to changes to the predominant ways in which Vuosaari’s streets, public places and housing corporations had been christened in the preceding decades. As Meri-Rastilantie ‘Meri-Rastila Road’, Harustie ‘Staysail Road’, Rysäkuja ‘Fyke Lane’, and the like illustrate, the public names associated with this project fell mainly into the conventional types of old toponyms and hereditary theme clusters. In a similar vein, the bulk of names associated with Meri-Rastila’s housing corporations supple- mented the already existing coastal-marine nomenclature (Asunto Oy Lokitie 19 ‘Hsg. Ltd Log Road 19’). By contrast, however, the construction of the neighbouring Kallahti brought with it more prominent changes in Vuosaari’s traditional nomenclature. In architectural terms, its planning reflected

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internationally fashionable models for (re-)developing postindustrial waterfronts. Accordingly, this brought along some significant changes in onomastic thinking as well. For one thing, there was a proliferation of exotic allusions among its housing corporation names that changed the predominent meanings attached to the area’s seaside location. For instance, such names as Asunto Oy Koralli ‘Hsg. Ltd Coral’, Asunto Oy Meriprisma ‘Hsg. Ltd Sea Prism’, and Asunto Oy Vuohelmi ‘Hsg. Ltd Vuo Pearl’ echoed the tastes of a global culture rather than meanings associated with local history and endemic natural features. Mean- while, some additions to planned toponymy expanded existing single name occurrences into new thematic clusters, as in the case with the geological names patterned by the Mustankivenpuisto ‘Black Stone Park’ (see also Lehikoinen 1999, 80–81). Furthermore, novel name- clusters based on local “groundwater resources” (Kaivonkatsojantie ‘Diviner Road’, Pohjavedentie ‘Groundwater Road’, and “former con- crete manufacturing” (Merihiekantie ‘Sea Sand Road’) were intro- duced for the first time since Vuosaari’s annexation. Remarkably, the city-planners utilized the area’s recent industrial past in building its identity. In line with international industrial heritage re-vitalization projects on coastal urban areas, the previous location of the Saseka factory (1938–1978), in particular, provided a source for a post-industrial motif in Kallahti’s waterside names such as Hiekkalaiturintie ‘Sand Pier Road’, Hiekkajaalanranta ‘Sand Yawl Shore’ and Kalk- kihiekantie ‘Lime Sand Road’. A question arises: can the novelties in the toponymy of Kallahti be explained in terms of the city authorities’ loosening regulative grip in favour of more market-oriented approaches to local naming practices? On the one hand, regarding both official and commercial post- industrial references (e.g. Asunto Oy Hiekkalaituri ‘Hsg. Ltd Sand Pier’) and exotic allusions in housing corporation names, it is clear that its namescape changes were responsive to international trends of urban development. To a certain extent at least, the post-industrial overtones in Kallahti’s planned namescape probably reflected efforts to manage the neighbourhood’s identity in order to “rekindle business interests and investments” (Short et al. 1993). On the other hand, we also see evidence of a persistent relative autonomy of authoritative name planning. First, just as the name-themes derived from local coastal nature and traditional livelihoods had been used during the earlier phases of Vuosaari’s urbanization, Saseka’s abandoned factory likewise provided

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a fitting symbol to refer to as a new layer of local history. Second, as the re-development of various seafronts throughout Helsinki had been recently adopted as a cornerstone of the city’s planning policy (e.g. Karvinen 1997, 157–160; Pennanen 2003), it was rather natural that Kallahti’s planners also resorted to the newly invented industrial nostalgia of ‘sand, cement and lime’ in their name-choices. Thus, even though new name-themes were being added, it appears that at this stage local authorities did not altogether abandon the earlier recommendations regarding the planning of the suburb’s nomenclature. In short, according to our interpretation, the period from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s can be best characterized as an intermediate phase between the regulative and the more market-led naming which was to characterize Vuosaari’s later urbanization. Indeed, in order to understand why a new direction was taken in the planning and naming policy of Vuosaari shortly after Meri-Rasti- la’s and Kallahti’s completion, it is necessary to notice the effects on these two projects of a concurrent slump in the national economy. As it turned out, vast sums of additional public funding were needed to complete the projects. In spite of the ambitious plans of the City of Helsinki, “New Vuosaari” on the southern seashore was on the verge of becoming a planning failure. In consequence, the city authorities felt it necessary to search for more market-based strategies to promote the district’s development. Fortuitously, the City found a devoted private partner for its endeavours in Paulig Ltd., a “local coffee roaster” that shared its own interests in preventing the district from becoming an ill-reputed slum (Kangas 1993; Haila 2005). Based on new kind of public-private partnerships between the City of Helsinki, Pro Paulig Ltd. (Paulig Ltd.’s affiliate) and other private sector builders, a complete turnabout was taken in the planning and naming policy of Vuosaari in the mid-1990s.

3.4. Mid-1990s to present There exists an opportunity to construct an exceptionally fascinating and personal seaside town on the southern coast of Vuosaari /…/ Still, as the planning of Vuosaari’s yet-to-be-built neighbourhoods is at initial stage, it is a right moment to look for means to enhance Vuosaari’s reputation and interestingness. (Raportti Vuosaaren kehittämisestä [Report on the development of Vuosaari] 1995, no pagination)

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In the early 1990s, Pro Paulig Ltd. had been obliged to prepare its own town plan for Vuosaari’s new commercial centre. Actually, the fact that the City of Helsinki gave up its legalized planning monopoly to allow this private plan was an unprecedented manoeuvre in the history of post-war Finnish urban planning. Located in the newly-built hub of the district, Columbus shopping mall was opened in 1995. Its name, playing with meanings associated with the world-famous seafarer and the discoverer of America, opened the semiotic universe of local namescape to distant geographical, historical and narrative worlds (see also Hopkins’ comments on Columbus’ Santa Maria as a draw of West Edmonton Mall, 1990). In addition to the commercial name Columbus, the second influential path-setter for the sudden proliferation of associative (but not necessarily non-local) naming in Vuosaari was undoubtedly Vuosaari’s newest seaside neighbourhood on the eastern side of Kallahti, dubbed in initial planning documents as Mus- talahti ‘Black Bay’ (after a fronting bay), but re-baptized into Aurinkolahti ‘Sun Bay’ after a traditional local Villa Solvik (a Swedish name; ‘Villa Sun Bay’) in the mid-1990s (Helsingin yleiskaava 1992, 98; Raportti Vuosaaren kehittämisestä 1995). Of course, the name- choice itself was an unlikely one for a northern European neighbourhood. It and a number of other street, promenade and park names (Aurinkoranta ‘Sun Beach’, Hellekuja ‘Hot Spell Alley’, and Kauniin- ilmanpuisto ‘Park of Beautiful Weather’) seasoned the local environment’s natural association with the sea with a metaphorical touch of leisure- and tourism-oriented exoticism. If anything, these southern and exotic associations of the sun and the sea (understood worldwide) were starkly antithetical to the locally introverted, bare spirit of nomenclature favoured in the preceding decades. The names of many housing corporations in the neighbourhood, such as Asunto Oy Aurin- gonpaiste ‘Hsg. Ltd Sunshine’ and Asunto Oy Solarus ‘Hsg. Ltd Solarus’ seem also inspired by imagery from a sunshiny beach culture. In contrast to restraints on the use of non-national languages in planned toponymy, many housing corporations even based their exotically evocative names on Greek and Romance terms (e.g. Asunto Oy Helios ‘Hsg. Ltd Helios’, Asunto Oy Corona, ‘Hsg. Ltd Corona’). Our data suggests that both Columbus shopping mall and Aurinkolahti neighbourhood played vital roles in the spurring and legitimizing new types of naming strategies all across the district in the years following. Thereafter, the earlier references to Vuosaari’s

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natural milieu or pre-industrial history fell very much out of fashion in both officially planned and corporate nomenclature. In their stead, we find trendy or otherwise attractive associations that the names seem designed to evoke. The case of Aurinkolahti is particularly illustrative of the city authorities’ liberalized attitude to the marketing strategies of the developers. Its linguistic landscaping went hand in hand with substantial investments in maritime architecture and advertising that underscored, through references to the symbolic elements of sea and sunshine, Aurinkolahti’s fashionable character as a living place for affluent new-comers (Vuosaari: Suunnittelu ja rakentaminen [Vuosaari: Planning and Construction.] 1998; Bäcklund & Schulman 2005; Ikonen 2005). The city of Helsinki, too, adjusted its general name planning policy to support this decision. Indeed, it may be argued that the choice of the area’s name (with its ‘sunshiny’ connotations) set in motion a process in which the assumed ‘readers’ of local toponomy (those to whom the marketing was directed) changed rapidly and radically. While an important rationale behind earlier name-choices was seen in their civic merit of enlightening locals and visitors about local history, the bulk of recent names in Aurinkolahti, as well as elsewhere in the district, have been forged typically and primarily with an eye to potential home-buyers. Interestingly, as image-driven name-themes began to abound in Vuosaari, many of these themes included allusions to urbanity—a motif almost totally absent from Vuosaari’s toponymy before the mid- 1990s. Some of the new historically derived names in the suburb reflect an international presence in the way urban names sometimes do (Benjamin 1999, 516–526). Examples include commemorative names which have been coined to salute the area’s recreational or industrial past. Gustav (1850–1907) and Bertha (1857–1923) Paulig, a couple of German origin, founders of the district’s major employer since the late 1960s, lent their names to two lanes in Aurinkolahti, as did several traditional villas and villa-owners to lanes and parks across Vuosaari’s southern seafront (Ivan Falinin kuja ‘Ivan Falin’s Lane’, Furumonkuja ‘Furumo Lane’). A set of borrowed Estonian place names in Meri-Rastila (Pärnunkatu ‘Pärnu Street’, Haapsalunkuja ‘Haapsalu Lane’) also added a distinctively international and urban tone to local nomenclature. At the same time, the more rural-sounding generic term tie ‘road’ (väg in Swedish), predominating in the area’s earlier street nomenclature, has been abandoned in favour of more

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urban-sounding katu ‘street’ (gata in Swedish) (see Pesonen 1981, 76; Room 1992, 1–17). Furthermore, the products Paulig’s refinery proved to be a handy cupboard for symbols with which to urbanize the area’s identity. In particular, a number of official names derived from the refinery’s spice and coffee products became a thematic cluster of upscale urban associations. Sokeritori ‘Sugar Square’, Mokkakuja ‘Mocha Lane’, Inkiväärikuja ‘Ginger Lane’, and Pomeranssipuisto ‘Seville Orange Park’, for instance, reflect the trendy tastes of an espresso world adopted into planned toponymy. In addition, in a new neighbourhood in north-western Vuosaari, Ensirivi ‘Dress Circle’, Aitiopaikka ‘Box Seat’ and other names harnessed “theatrical” connotations of urban finesse. Due to the stricter political constraints on planned nomenclature, many urban themes surfaced in even more striking ways among the names of housing corporations. In the vicinity of Paulig’s factory, in particular, fashionable names were derived from the globalized ter- minology of Italian special coffees (e.g., Asunto Oy (‘Hsg. Ltd’) Mac- chiato, Asunto Oy Corretto, Asunto Oy Cappuccino). Non-translated English specific terms in Asunto Oy Helsinki’s East End and Asunto Oy Helsinki’s Dockside also contributed to the local linguistic diversity by evoking connotations of gentrified industrial neighbourhoods in Anglo-American urban settings. Supporting our interpretation that the multiplication of name- themes has been a defining feature of Vuosaari’s recent onomastic transformation, the most recent years have also seen the emergence of motifs that do not fall into the thematic categories of the sea, the sun or urban culture. One type of example are the retro-spirited horticultural associations that have been favoured in many new neighbourhoods. Side by side with the sunshiny exoticism and post-industrial patina of Aurinkolahti’s nomenclature, there is a cluster of names referring to specific rose breeds distictive to the area’s villa era (e.g., Juhannusruusunkuja ‘Midnight Summer Rose Lane’, and Asunto Oy Nukkeruusunkuja 3 ‘Hsg. Ltd Helsinki’s Doll Rose Lane 3’). By the same token, the adjacent development Omenamäki, (‘Apple Hill’), includes idyllic allusions to a historical apple garden (e.g., Astrakaan- ikuja ‘Astracane Lane’ and Asunto Oy Omenankukka ‘Hsg. Ltd Apple- flower’). Besides the horticultural themes, the planned names of the Porslahti neighbourhood illustrate the use of fantasy. Examples include Pilvilinnankuja ‘Castle in the Clouds Lane’ and Kultakutrinkuja

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‘Goldilocks Lane’ drawn from the children’s stories of the Finnish national author Topelius (1818–1898). These names pay witness to the fact that the name planning authorities of Helsinki—formerly commit- ted to regularized use of traditional toponyms and other locally motivated toponyms—have sometimes independently contributed to the fictionalizing of local toponymy.

4. Conclusions In trying to make sense of the practices and motifs behind the linguistic landscaping in the course of Vuosaari’s urbanization, we started our case history from the early 1960s when the district’s nomenclature was brought under the purview of systematic planning by local authorities. From the outset, a decision was made to build the area’s onomastic identity around its coastal environment and traditional livelihoods. In a somewhat paradoxical vein, the construction of Helsin- ki’s new satellite suburb was accompanied with name-choices anchored almost solely in the area’s sea-related, pre-urban past. In essence, the ideals of modern urban planning moulded the local toponymy—and to a lesser degree even housing corporation nomenclature, predomi- nantly derived from the former—into a functionally coherent and the- matically homogenous whole. At this stage, names reflecting cultural globalization and urban associations were quite simply unthinkable options in the minds of local planners. In an interesting contrast with many other suburbs in Helsinki (see also Carpelan & Schulman 1996, 56–57), even names with explicitly nationalistic overtones were excluded from Vuosaari’s namescape. In fact, divergences from the prosaic and locally introverted toponymy were suppressed. Until the latter half of the 1980s, the few exceptions to this rule were a handful of park and light traffic roadway names derived from present-day urban functions, the early housing corporation names that celebrated the blessings of saving money, and some increasingly frequent meta- phorically named housing corporations. However, along with the rise of “New Vuosaari” on the southern seashore of the district a plethora of new thematic associations began to replace the canon in which coinages were firmly rooted. Specifi- cally, the construction of the Kallahti neighbourhood at turn of the 1990s brought with it some new thematic clusters into the local toponymy. Of special note are names that were derived from the area’s

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industrial heritage, as these echoed internationally fashionable post- industrial meanings. A real turn towards the use of names as a means of marketing emerged only a few years later, in part due to the dete- riorating effects of economic depression at the time when Kallahti and Meri-Rastila projects were under construction. At this stage, new plans for the district’s commercial centre and luxurious Aurinkolahti neighbourhood were undertaken by public-private partnerships. Along with them, name-themes often linked very weakly to local history and even less so to the area’s natural environment began to proliferate. While the new thematic clusters continued to be linked to specific neighbourhoods, both official and housing corporation name-choices became harnessed to the service of image-driven promotion of those neighbourhoods and their properties. Suddenly, metaphoric evocations of the sea, the sun, industrial heritage, internationalism, garden idylls, etc. were mushrooming all across Vuosaari’s namescape. In sum, four key aspects in Vuosaari’s recent onomastic transformation, potentially contributing to the understanding of toponymic changes in other urban contexts as well, can be identified. First of all, the rise of market-based strategies in local planning has resulted in the pluralisation of Vuosaari’s namescape. In view of the theme clusters with distinctively global connotations and those in which local and international meanings have been wittily combined, the overall result is that Vuosaari’s toponymy has changed in a truly postmodern fashion (Harvey 1989) and is much more fragmented than it used to be during the heyday of authority-led modern urban planning. Second, the symbolism associated with “the locale” has meanwhile changed considerably as well. In previous decades, the symbolism of Vuosaari’s official toponymy was strictly subordinate to the logic of the district’s pre-industrial past. More recently, a much more “extroverted sense of the place” (Massey 1994) has been put on onomastic pedestal. Earlier, references to such locally ‘rooted’ things as sailing vessels and fishing tackles were prominent; now they have been supplanted by evocations of sea, sand, and sunshine, the industrial heritage, fashionable culinary delights, garden idylls, and cultural recreations of the professional class. Third, the recent changes in Vuosaari’s topomymy evince a remark- able shift from an anti-urban ethos to that of a distinctively urban culture. Besides the fact that various hitherto unforeseen urban themes have surfaced in local nomenclature, the increased variety of the namescape itself has been a crucial factor in building a distinctively

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city-like identity for the suburb. Fourth, and relatedly, the increased linguistic diversity—the upsurge of fashionable or lofty Romance, Greek and English foreignisms to be found especially in housing corporation nomenclature—has been another dimension of the dramatic turmoil in local naming practices that began in the mid-1990s. It aptly illustrates the general tendency, obvious even to international observers, of current name-givers to experiment with names as a way to promote urban places. Finally, the dramatic changes in Vuosaari’s linguistic landscaping over the last few decades cannot be explained simply as a result of its continuing urbanization. In many respects parallel developments in its planned and housing corporation nomenclature—e.g. a shift away from pre-urban local history, and proliferating experiments with fashionable themes—underscore the link between local naming practices and wider transformations in society, such as the commercializa- tion of real estate and more liberal attitudes toward marketing and promotion among urban planners.

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Jani Vuolteenaho Department of Geography P.O. Box 64 FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland [email protected]

Terhi Ainiala Research Institute for the Languages of Finland Vuorikatu 24 FI-00100 Helsinki, Finland [email protected]

Elina Wihuri Research Institute for the Languages of Finland Vuorikatu 24 FI-00100 Helsinki, Finland [email protected]

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Summary: The change in planned nomenclature in Vuosaari, Helsinki Recently, many commentators have argued that the influence of private-sector economic actors in urban name issuing has increased as a result of economic globalization and place-marketing. That is, while the affixing names to neighbourhoods, streets, parks et cetera has been long interwoven into the authority- led practices of town planning, the distinction between officially authorized toponyms and commercial names is now getting more blurred. This article, based on over 600 town plan and housing corporation names given between early 1960s and mid-1990s, presents a case study on the dramatic transformation of onomastic landscape of Vuosaari, a seaside suburb on the eastern outskirts of Helsinki.

Resumé: Le changement dans la nomenclature planifiée des rues de Vuosaari (Helsinki). Récemment, de nombreux commentateurs ont soutenu que l’influence des acteurs économiques du secteur privé augmentait dans l’attribution des noms urbains, en fonction de la globalisation économique et de la marchandisation des lieux. En effet, tandis que les noms attachés aux quartiers, rues, parcs etc. ont été longuement mêlés aux pratiques des autorités municipales, la distinction entre les toponymes officiellement autorisés et les noms commerciaux n’a cessé de devenir de plus en plus floue. Le présent article, qui repose sur plus de six cents noms extraits de plans urbains et de sociétés immobilières, donnés entre le début des années 60 et le milieu des années 90, présente une étude de cas sur la transformation dramatique du paysage toponymique de Vuosaari, faubourg balnéaire à la périphérie est d’Helsinki.

Zusammenfassung: Wandlungsprozesse bei der gesteuerten Namengebng in Vuosaari, Helsinki In den letzten Jahren ist häufig vermutet worden, im Zuge der wirtschaftlichen Globalisierung und des Standortmarketings habe sich der Einfluss der Privat- wirtschaft und ihrer Vertreter auf die städische Namengebung verstärkt. Das liegt daran, dass die Namenwahl für Stadtviertel, Straßen, Parks, usw., lange Zeit an die durch die Amtsgewalten gesteuerte Praxis der Städteplanung gekoppelt war, während inzwischen wird die Unterscheidung zwischen offi- ziell genehmigten Toponymen und kommerzieller Namengebung undeutlicher wird. Dieser Beitrag stellt eine Fallstudie vor, die sich auf über 600 Namen stützt, welche von Städteplanern und Wohnungsbaufirmen zwischen den frü- hen 1960er und der Mitte der 1990er Jahre vergeben wurden; an ihr lassen sich die dramatischen Veränderungen der onomastischen Landschaft von Vuo- saari, einer im Küstenbereich gelegenen Vorstadt in den östlichen Außenbe- zirken von Helsinki, ablesen.

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