Tallinn Architecture City Guide: 13 Projects in a Capital Reclaiming its Waterfront
Seen from the water, Tallinn presents the skyline of a Hanseatic merchant town. During the Soviet period, most of the seafront was a restricted military zone, leaving the harbour as one of the few places where the city and the sea could meet. Even Linnahall, the vast concrete venue built for the sailing events of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, was positioned in part to preserve the view of the old town for ships approaching the harbour. For half a century, Tallinn grew away from the water that had made it a trading city, so when independence was restored in 1991, some of the capital's most valuable land was also among the least familiar to its inhabitants.
