Kluuvi

Kluuvi ( swedish Gloet ) is a branch (Finnish osa - alue ) and a district ( kaupunginosa ) of the Finnish capital Helsinki. It includes the area that is commonly regarded as the city core. In common parlance the name " Kluuvi " is unusual, usually the area is simply as " center " or " core center " (Finnish ydinkeskusta ) refers.

The district has no inhabitants, but all the more jobs now. Located on its territory, a large part of the city most important public, cultural and commercial institutions, such as the main railway station, the central campus of the University of Helsinki, the art museums Ateneum and Kiasma, National Theatre, shopping malls and department stores as the main branch of Stockmann, one of the largest cinemas in the city ( Kinopalatsi ), numerous corporate headquarters, the Helsinki Stock Exchange as well as the Park Kaisa Niemi with its botanical garden. The busiest section of the Aleksanterinkatu shopping street is in the field of Kluuvi.

The boundaries of the district are the Mannerheimintie, in the south of the Esplanadi, in the east and in the north Unioninkatu the two bays Töölönlahti and Eläintarhanlahti in the West.

Geography and History

The Swedish name of Kluuvi, Gloet, literally means a low, for example, by land uplift or accumulation of mud and reeds gradually overgrowing bay. In fact, a large part of Kluuvi was originally under water, forming a narrow, running north to south bay, called in Finnish Kluuvinlahti. She was connected to the north with the Bay Töölönlahti, in the south they originally extended to the basin of today's South Harbour. The area east of lying Kluuvi (today Kruununhaka ) was still in the Middle Ages an island. However, the bay was already in the 1640s, when Helsinki was moved from Vanhakaupunki after Kruununhaka, partially overgrown.

The swampy and also still used as a dumping ground bay was gradually becoming a health problem for the city, so there were already plans in the 18th century they would fill the bay permanently. However, these were not implemented for strategic reasons - the bay provided a natural barrier for attackers represents the situation changed in the early 19th century, when Helsinki was ascended to the capital of Finland and the now rapidly growing city had spread from Kruununhaka from. Now they began bombarding the bay gradually. In the second half of the 19th century it was already largely disappeared. As late as the 1950s it was considering the possibility they would fill in the north followed by Töölönlahti, but these plans were eventually abandoned for aesthetic reasons.

Because the earth is heaped up in Kluuvi and is located on a former water and marsh area, it is softer than in other parts of the Helsinki city center. This provides for construction engineering is still a challenge the foundations of all the buildings had to be backed by extensive pile foundation work. During construction of the Metro Helsinki the ground even for the duration of the work had to be artificially frozen. Today strain fluctuations in the groundwater level, the wooden pile foundations of older buildings. On the streets you can in some places a slight tremor of the earth notice, for example, when passing by a tram.

The places where the original coast line crosses today Aleksanterinkatu are marked with inset in the sidewalk brass plates. At the small height differences on the Aleksanterinkatu one can also notice that Kluuvi is somewhat lower than the neighboring areas today.