RECONSTRUCTION PLAN FOR ROVANIEMI

Aalto's point of departure for the construction plan of Rovaniemi was the position of market town as the capital of Finnish Lapland and as the traffic centre of the whole northern Finland. Different traffic area reservations are joining at the area of the market town form-ing five-armed design, reindeer antler, in the layout. the reindeer antler area comprises all the important thoroughfares and the areas reserved for railways as well. The reconstruc-tion plan of Rovaniemi is concealing a puzzle picture of a reindeer: two branches of the central park are outlined as reindeer horns, two are defining reindeer's head and one it's back. The sports ground is a reindeer's eye. The upper part of the crown antler is formed of meandering residential streets, winding like paths trodden by reindeer.

The areas reserved for urban activities were sited within the five-armed pattern of the Reindeer antler. Here were sited besides the centre also residential areas to the west and northeast of it, a residential area to the south of the centre and the industrial and ware-house area to the west of it.

The building areas were marked as separate so that the plan was aiming at creating a cube-like structure instead of those long, solid building masses. The spacious structure, divided by the branches of the park, had better fire safety than what was the case with the previous plan. The highest permitted number of storeys was four.

A guiding principle throughout the whole plan is the organising of building so that at first could be built wooden houses because there were material available for those and then, when times would be getting better, brick houses.