An Interview with Heikki von Hertzen: The Man Behind the Garden City of Tapiola, Finland

Abstract

During the 1960s and early 1970s, few emerging new towns and planned communities in Europe received more attention from foreign observers than did the garden city of Tapiola, Finland. Situated just outside of Helsinki, Finland's capital city, Tapiola received acclaim because of its highly attractive natural setting and landscape, its well designed architecture, and the efforts of its sponsor to provide housing and services for a cross-section of Finnish society. Though many people participated in the planning and development of the community, one man, by far, served as the major catalyst throughout the first quarter century of the community's evolution: Heikki von Hertzen. Now retired, the former lawyer, banker, social activist, and garden city advocate continues to express the same outspoken but pragmatic idealism he displayed in Finland and as chairman of various international housing organizations, as a new towns planning consultant, and as a visiting professor at various American universities. This interview, presented here in an edited and shortened form, was conducted in Tapiola, both in English and Finnish, on May 24, 1982.