Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces New guidelines for visitors Due to the Covid-19 pandemic changes may occur. Please check the service provider´s website for the latest information. City of Helsinki Covid-19 information for visitors www.myhelsinki.f/en/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-visitors Contents Foreword 4 Underground master planning is a signifcant part of land-use planning in Helsinki 5 Underground spaces open to the public 7 Amos Rex 9 Temppeliaukio Church 10 Musiikkitalo – the Helsinki Music Centre 11 The Olympic Stadium 12 Metro stations 13 Underground walking and shopping routes 14 Underground parking 18 Sport facilities 19 The Ring Rail Line, Airport railway station & Aviapolis 20 Itäkeskus swimming hall and emergency shelter 21 Underground spaces where authorisation is required 22 The city centre service tunnel 23 The Viikinmäki wastewater treatment plant 25 Hartwall Arena training hall and restaurant 26 Development of the urban structure and constructions for public transport 27 Underground spaces not open for visits 28 Technical tunnels 29 Suomenlinna island emergency and service tunnel 29 Esplanadi artifcial lake and Mustikkamaa heat caverns 30 The future 31 Garden Helsinki 32 The FinEst Railway tunnel 33 Länsimetro, West Metro extension, phase 2 34 The New National 35 The Kaisa Tunnel 36 Underground Helsinki is based on coordination 37 Application to visit underground spaces in Helsinki 38 Cover photo: Amos Rex Art Museum (Tuomas Uusheimo) Layout: Valve Branding Oy Foreword Helsinki’s underground spaces have been of increasing international interest. Requests for visits come almost daily to the author of this brochure alone. At the same time, safety regulations for underground facilities – especially for technical tunnels – have tightened considerably from previous years. The City of Helsinki has limited capabilities for organising visits. However, this brochure lets visitors make independent exploration visits to underground spaces, send direct requests to the operators/ owners of the underground spaces, and gain information about the underground facilities and practices related to them in advance. The brochure contains information about: • underground Helsinki in general • spaces that you can explore on your own • spaces that require authorisation from the space’s operator/owner and a form to be completed by the visitor • spaces that cannot be visited • some upcoming spaces • the centralised management and distribution of ground wires, cables, underground structures and spaces, as well as soil information. February 2021 Ilkka Vähäaho City of Helsinki Head of Soil and Bedrock Unit 4 Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces – Guidelines for visitors Underground master planning is a signifcant part of land-use planning in Helsinki Helsinki began constructing its vast network of people, around a quarter of Finland’s population, underground facilities in the 1980s. Underground Greater Helsinki is the world’s northernmost city construction continues to this day and Helsinki of this scale (latitude 60.1699°N), but temperatures now has some 400 separate facilities and in the winter are mitigated by the infuence of the tunnels, the deepest of which is about 100 m Gulf Stream, with the average temperature in below sea level. Today, 90 of these spaces are January and February being around -4 and -5 °C dual-purpose, designed to meet normal needs respectively. Escaping a severe winter climate with strengthening just for ‘exceptional times’. is therefore not a primary consideration for If necessary, a sports feld can be turned into a underground development, as it is in Montreal for shelter in just 72 hours, which includes the time example (latitude 45.5017°N). Instead, the main taken to install decontamination showers and drivers are the favourable characteristics of the toilets, and close the doors tight. bedrock and the fact that Finns are used to having lots of open space around them, even in urban With a compact urban grain – more medium- areas. As the city structure is becoming denser, scale than towering – Helsinki could be more facilities suited for diferent purposes are characterised as a ‘low-rise city’ that uses its being placed underground. multi-layered underground in a highly efective way. Underground resources are reserved Underground Master plan mainly for uses that are for the common good. With the growth in underground construction This means places where people can gather, and planning, and the need to coordinate as well as utilities such as the city’s extensive diferent projects, the City of Helsinki took its district heating and cooling network – 1350 km frst steps towards preparing a master plan long and growing fast – which recycles energy for its entire underground facilities in the early from local sources that would otherwise go to 2000s. Although the city had maintained an waste. The connective tissue of the underground underground space allocation plan since the also extends far beyond the city itself with a 1980s, this more comprehensive general plan visionary plan to link Helsinki with its sister with its legally binding status reinforces the city, Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, via a 100 km systematic nature and quality of underground subsea tunnel across the Gulf of Finland. construction and the exchange of information related to it. The underground master plan Drivers for underground development allows control over the location of signifcant The low-lying, watery Helsinki area covers 214 km2 new underground rock facilities and trafc of land and 500 km2 of sea. Home to 1.5 million tunnels and their interconnections. 5 Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces – Guidelines for visitors Photo: Helen Oy It includes space allocations for transport, On 8 December 2010, the City Council approved sports, various installations and establishments, the frst Underground Master Plan of Helsinki water and energy supply, parking, storage, (except for the reservation of the Pitkäkoski fresh waste management and other similar facilities. water treatment plant, against which an appeal The aim is to achieve joint use wherever was made to the Administrative Court, but was possible, for example with a multi-purpose rejected on 18 November 2011). The preparation tunnel network or shared parking, etc. of the new underground master plan began in 2017. A plan draf was reviewed by the Urban Underground resources play a central role in Environment Commitee in May 2020. The draf the development of the urban fabric of Helsinki is used to prepare a plan proposal, on which the and the adjoining areas, helping to create a Commitee will make a decision in early 2021. The more unifed and eco-efcient structure. fnal decision regarding the plan will be made by In simple terms, underground facilities can the City Council. be thought of as providing the ultimate ‘green www.hel.f/helsinki/en/housing/planning/current/ roof’. Facilities placed fully underground underground-master-plan do not impact the surface aesthetic (once constructed) and can leave space for natural Urban Underground Space – Sustainable ground surfaces and fora that maintain Property Development in Helsinki the natural ecological exchanges of thermal Free publication ‘Urban Underground Space radiation, convection and moisture exchange. – Sustainable Property Development in Helsinki’: www.bit.ly/urban-underground-space Video: Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces – Underground master plan & the city centre service tunnel youtu.be/prYiP3sFPfY 6 Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces – Guidelines for visitors Underground spaces open to the public 7 Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces – Guidelines for visitors Underground spaces open to the public 1 Amos Rex Underground walking and 5 shopping routes 2 Temppeliaukio Church 6 Underground parking 3 Musiikkitalo – the Helsinki Music Centre Arena Center Hakaniemi and 7 Leikkiluola indoor playground 4 The Olympic Stadium 8 Formula Center Helsinki Metro stations 9 The Ring Rail Line, Airport railway station & Aviapolis Itäkeskus swimming hall and 10 emergency shelter 4 Airport 9 7 6 2 3 1 5 6 5 5 6 8 10 7 2 1 5 6 8 Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces – Guidelines for visitors Photo: Tuomas Uusheimo Amos Rex Introduction: Expanding museums below ground is not so unusual around the world. In Amos Rex’s case, the unusual aspect was how it was planned. Amos Rex is quickly turning into an architectural atraction. The underground location of Amos Rex is not something that is emphasised, in fact quite the opposite. The transition of the museum from ‘Glass Palace’ (Lasipalatsi) Square to its underground facilities is unnoticeable, and natural light is channelled into the building. Without the underground facilities, Amos Rex could not have been built in the centre of Helsinki. Amos Rex was designed by JKMM Architects. Mannerheimintie 22–24, 00100 Helsinki Things to remember: Distance from the Central Railway Station: • Please note the publishing rights for the art 300 m (5 min walk) and exhibitions. • You are not allowed to flm or take photos of www.amosrex.f/en people for commercial use without permit. Links to image banks: www.bit.ly/amosrex-myhelsinki www.bit.ly/amosrex-underground www.amosrex.f/en/press 9 Helsinki Urban Underground Spaces – Guidelines for visitors Photo: City of Helsinki Image Bank Temppeliaukio Church Introduction: Architect brothers Timo (1928–) and Tuomo (1931–1988) Suomalainen won the open competition in 1960–1961 for the architectural design of Temppeliaukio Church by unanimous decision of the jury. Temppeliaukio