Why a New Building?

As Estonia’s only public university for design, architecture and art, the Academy of Arts needs proper infrastructure in order to retain and grow its international competitiveness, and to support training, activity and entrepreneurship in the people who will shape the environment in future. The effectiveness of the Academy’s areas of activity and programmes in key spheres in society depends on having a modern, attractive study environment, and this is why the priority and most immediate goal for EAA is to have a new academic building. The previous Estonian Academy of Arts location had outdated technical systems and was otherwise obsolete. Students were studying in very cramped conditions and the physical environment was the poorest of any Estonian public university.

For more than 10 years, plans were made to relocate the Estonian Academy of Arts to different places in Tallinn (the former Patarei Sea Fortress, the former Paldiski mnt psychiatric and neurological hospital buildings, the Estonian Public Broadcasting building were among properties considered). On 31 March 2006, after long searches, the Council of the Estonian Academy of Arts decided in favour of the location on Tartu mnt 1 in the city centre in order to preserve historical continuity. Unfortunately, due to a neighbour’s opposition, the “Art Plaza” project selected at the international architecture competition could not be built, and the EAA Council thus weighed other alternatives. In September 2013, it chose a new location: the Rauaniidi factory building at Kotzebue 7/Põhja pst 1 in the Kalamaja district of Tallinn. For more, visit https://www.artun.ee/en/academy/new-building/