Joensuu is a city in Finland and the regional center of North
Karelia, located on the northern shore of Lake Pyhäselä at the mouth
of the Pielisjoki River in North Karelia. Joensuu is the 12th
largest city in Finland in terms of population. About 76,000 people
live in the Joensuu city area. The neighboring municipalities of
Joensuu are Ilomantsi, Kontiolahti, Lieksa, Liperi, Rääkkylä and
Tohmajärvi. In addition, Joensuu is bordered on the east by Russia.
Joensuu belongs to the Joensuu region, which currently also
includes the municipalities of Ilomantsi, Juua, Kontiolahti, Liperi
and Polvijärvi, as well as the city of Outokumpu. Of these,
Ilomantsi is not involved in regional cooperation in the Joensuu
region. The European Forest Institute is located in the city.
In the autumn of 2008, the city of Joensuu received its own
flag, designed by Leea Wasenius. The flag is based on the coat of
arms of the city. The city's nominal animal species are the toad
(from 2012), the golden cricket, the lake salmon and the squirrel
(from 2012). The title plant species are delicacy and root canal.
Geography and cityscape
Joensuu is located on the shores of
Pyhäselä, which belongs to the Saimaa lake district, to which the
Pielisjoki River, which divides the city into two parts, flows.
The total area of the city in 2004 was 120.3 km², of which
81.9 km² was land. The population density, taking into account land
areas, was 643 inhabitants / km² at the beginning of 2004. With the
association of municipalities in 2005, the total area of Joensuu
became 1,311.94 km², of which 1,171.06 km² is land.
Cityscape
The principles of the cityscape of Joensuu were created in the first
town plan drawn up by architect Claës Wilhelm Gyldén in 1848. It
shows the division of the city into regular-sized rectangular
blocks, which were initially divided into six plots. The Gyldén town
plan represents the zoning ideals of the empire, with an emphasis on
promoting fire safety by dividing the city through wide park streets
that slow the spread of fire. This ideal culminated in the General
Urban Building Order (KYRJ) of 1856.
The surviving principles
of the Gyldén town plan are:
The alignment of the Pielisjoki
shoreline of Rantakatu as closely as possible,
A variable-width
park zone between the promenade and the shoreline,
the allocation
of two church plots from mounds to both a Lutheran and an Orthodox
church,
Kirkkokatu park axis connecting churches
The position
of Siltakatu as a transverse park street
market location;
originally, two blocks were reserved for the market square
It
was necessary to revise the town plan as early as the 1860s. The
main reason was that the plots turned out to be too small. The
formula drawn up by Ferdinand Öhman in 1867 emphasized the above
features. In addition, an axis of parks, squares and public
buildings had been created between Siltakatu and Koskikatu, which
runs in a parallel direction to the south, and which is still
emphasized in the cityscape of Joensuu. From the shore of the
Pielisjoki River, on the axis are the town hall, Vapaudenpuisto,
Joensuu tori, the Keskusujaja and Keskuspuisto block, which also
includes commercial buildings, the former lyceum block (now the Art
Museum), the Joensuu lyceum high school, Later, on the extension of
the same axis, just outside the old grid pattern area, the main
building of the University of Eastern Finland is also located. In
the town plan, the plot division of the blocks was changed to
4-division, but this was implemented only in the new undeveloped
blocks. The old blocks followed the old block of six plots or a
combination of the two. The variability of plot distribution is
still typical in the center of Joensuu.
Joensuu was realized
as a distinctive wooden city of empire, characterized by low
buildings and a wide street space compared to older cities. The
first private stone houses appeared in the early 20th century and
larger commercial buildings began to be built along Siltakatu in the
late 1940s. However, the wooden city look was preserved for a long
time in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the old building stock was quickly
replaced by lamellar apartment buildings, usually consisting of an
above-ground basement and three residential floors, which today form
cohesive street spaces along north-south blocks. The block structure
was open-ended, so in this respect the urban structure realizes the
ideal of functionalism.
At the beginning of the 21st century,
large investments have been made in the center of Joensuu that
affect the cityscape, including a pedestrian center project. This
has been followed by private investors with their new commercial
construction projects around the market.
Until 1954, Joensuu
was a small agrarian trading town besieged by the municipality of
Pielisensuu and competing with it. The city and the surrounding
suburbs were marked by many sawmills and were surrounded by factory
communities such as Utra, Sirkkala and the Penttilä sawmill. The
city had been expanded east of the Pielisjoki River with a town plan
for the Niinivaara district prepared by Bertel Jung. After the wars,
settlers and frontmen had also been settled in the new districts of
Otsola and Kanervala, the construction of which was based on
standard houses created by the Finnish Association of Architects'
SAFA Standardization Office.
With the help of a larger urban
entity formed after the amalgamation of municipalities in early
1955, it was easier to plan for the future of the area. The Joensuu
Master Plan (1953) prepared by Otto-Iivari Meurman laid the
foundation for future growth by applying the suburban principle to
the designation of new construction areas and by renewing the main
road, for example, around the ring road around the city center.
Since the late 1990s, Joensuu has increased the supply of detached
house plots, while the areas of employment and business have
expanded with regionalization.
Meurman's master plan also laid the foundation for the urban
green area network, the key features of which are the routes
following the banks of the Pielisjoki and Pyhäselä and the
concentration of leisure services in Mehtimäki and Linnunlahti.
Since the 1970s, the university campus of the University of Eastern
Finland has been created on the west side of the city center, next
to Mehtimäki.
Urban planning has taken into account the
continuity of green areas, the so-called green corridors, and good
light traffic connections both in the city center and on the
outskirts of the city. Joensuu is a city with a clear structure, and
it is not very easy to get lost, especially in its central area.
It is considered a mistake to see the cityscape and the
architecture of the city that the visual connections to the nearby
Pyhäselä are poor in many places. Instead, the Pielisjoki is an
integral and visible part of the cityscape. Improving the views of
Pyhäselä has been taken into account in the general guidelines for
the development of the city.
The most significant of the new
areas are the Red Brick-dominated Rantakylä, built in the 1970s, and
the pale Noljakka, built in the 1980s and 1990s. Efforts have been
made to develop these and Niinivaara into strong regional centers
with apartment buildings. In the largest districts, there are
separate library, school, health center, pharmacy and postal
services and shopping centers as integrated service centers. The
majority of the population lives in a fairly limited area in the
main districts, and therefore journeys to services are short.
At the top of Niinivaara, which dominates the river views of
Joensuu, there is the North Karelia Central Hospital. The Joensuu
campus of the University of Eastern Finland and part of Karelia
University of Applied Sciences are located right on the edge of the
grid area in the city center.