Lasnaidea in ERR News: Lasnamäe the final frontier?
26. juuni 2014
[...] Saying that in Estonia, Lasnamäe is seen as depressive and dangerous is like saying the sky is seen as blue. The stereotypes abound and even as recently as in 2007 - although Mati Unt’s original novel Autumn Ball (Sügisball) took place in Mustamäe, Veiko Õunpuu made the artistic choice of moving the action of his film adaptation to Lasnamäe, mixing eras and aesthetics, apparently to take the expression of ultimate angst to a symbolic level without delving into the realities of the place in the mid-noughties.[...]
Now the Estonian Urban Lab, a competence center for urban thought and action that has engaged Tallinn’s neighborhood associations with their project Urban Idea in the past, is reaching out to Lasnamäe. While the districts of panel houses were built according to the fantasies of Soviet urbanists, aiming to limit personal space to the bed and organize everything else communally, the ideas failed particularly in the social sphere and these districts are now usually seen as passive and lacking of community spirit. So inspiring activism there is an ambitious undertaking, Teele Pehk from the Estonian Urban Lab admitted, telling News ERR that Lasnaidee (Lasnaidea) grew out of the Urban Idea, which mostly dealt with greener and older districts with an established community spirit.[...]
Read more here.
