Competitions Deadline 27 April 2026 Published on 16/02/2026

Open call : Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2026

From Void to Value: Revisioning Tallinn’s Old Town

Vision Competition

The FROM VOID TO VALUE vision competition asks how the UNESCO-protected Gothic Old Town of Tallinn can be rethought as a socially and materially “cheap” urban structure—accessible, usable, and integrated with contemporary city life—despite strict heritage constraints and entrenched market pressures.

Conceptual background

Tallinn’s Old Town is exceptionally well preserved in part because historical economic scarcity limited large-scale renewal: modern grids did not overwrite the medieval street and plot system, and later facade updates retained medieval load-bearing structures.

Over time, continued use and conservation have amortized material costs, making the area physically cost-effective at a citywide scale. Socially, however, the Old Town has become expensive and increasingly detached from local life, shaped by comprehensive protection (from 1966), post-1990s privatization and neoliberal reforms, and the growth of tourism and commercialization. The competition frames this tension—low long-term physical cost versus high social cost—as its central problem.

Competition area

The site lies on the southern edge of the Old Town, forming a connective axis between the medieval core and surrounding districts. It is one of the few blocks destroyed in the Red Army air bombing of 1944 (Tallinn lost one third of its building stock). Since then, redevelopment debates have repeatedly resurfaced, making the site a persistent planning controversy.

While the park functions as one of the Old Town’s few green public spaces (including use as an ice rink in winter), the open void interrupts the spatial continuity UNESCO values in the Old Town’s urban structure and weakens the spatial relationship between Town Hall Square and Freedom Square.

Vision task

Participants are asked to treat the site not as a single object but as a set of typologies that reflects the Old Town as a whole, and to propose a coherent strategy for urban resilience and social sustainability in a historic context. Submissions should propose programme and function and demonstrate how these materialise in spatial and architectural form.

Competition materials can be downloaded here.

Key typologies to address

Urban void (war relic): Harju Street open space (park since 1948) and comparable undefined spaces in the bastion belt.
Streets and public spaces: the streetscape as the dominant public realm of the Old Town.
Unused buildings: Rüütli 4 (municipality) and Rüütli 6, 8, 10 (Tallinn University), with no clear institutional vision.
Courtyards: a sequence of hidden public spaces reached via covered passage, including a passable courtyard, terraced stair, and the Danish King’s Garden.

Prizes and presentation

First prize: 4,499.99 €
Second prize: 2,499.99 €
Third prize: 1,499.99 €
Five Honorable Mentions (no monetary award)

Winning projects will be exhibited in the main exhibition of Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2026. An atlas of selected concepts (1–3 prizes and honorable mentions) will be presented to the City of Tallinn and exhibited as part of TAB 2026.