Admissions

Looking for an exciting international study experience? Estonia’s top universities — Tallinn University, Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonian Business School, and Estonian University of Life Sciences — invite you to an online info session!

Whether you’re seeking a bachelor’s or master’s programmes, this event is your gateway to world-class education and vibrant student life in Estonia.

• Insights into studying in Estonia and our international programmes
• General information, accommodation and student life
• Scholarships to support your studies

• 17:00: Studying and living in Estonia
• 17:20: Universities presentations
• 18:40: Q&A and wrap-up

The Open Lecture series of the EKA Faculty of Architecture will take place in the autumn of 2024 under the general title S*cial – Values in the built realm.

The lecturers will focus on the ongoing shift in planning practice, where considerations other than pure economic viability increasingly play a role in decision-making.

On November 28 Petra Marko will hold the lecture “Meanwhile City – The power of temporary interventions in long-term change”.

Petra Marko is an architect and placemaking expert dedicated to creating people-centric cities and public spaces. She serves as Chief executive of the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava, driving strategic architecture, urban planning and participatory placemaking initiatives to enhance quality of life. She’s known for leading Marko&Placemakers, an urban design practice in London and campaigning to unlock London’s small sites. An advocate for greener cities and active travel, Petra has co-authored VeloCity and Meanwhile City – a best practice and how-to guide for temporary interventions.

Mattias Malk, curator of the autumn lecture series, PhD student and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, describes the main theme of the lecture series as follows:

Inclusion, the valorisation of social space and the changing role of architects, especially in the public sector, are gaining ground in Europe’s spatial development, but things are still moving slowly in Estonia. So far, our economic growth has been based on environmental degradation and, despite rigid market-driven planning, we are among the weakest in the EU in resource use. However, the foundations of a smarter spatial policy, which is more profitable than profit, are still undefined and untested. 

One of the aims of the lecture series is to define and rehabilitate the word ‘social’ in Estonian spatial policy, including the social responsibility mentioned in the new planned public procurement. All the invited lecturers deal with the issues of space and sociality in their daily work and will share their experiences of the changing role of architects through examples. 

The lectures are intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture. All lectures are in English and free of charge.

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Faculty of Architecture of EKA presents a dozen unique practitioners and valued theorists in the field in Tallinn every academic year. See all the lectures: www.avatudloengud.ee

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Erik Sigge will give an open lecture “The Worth of Welfare: A Historical Perspective on the Costing and Financing of Public Buildings”

on October 28 at 5 pm at EKA classroom A-501

Since 1993, Sweden has deregulated many of its welfare services, with a majority of the privatization taking place after 2007. In a historical perspective, the longstanding problem of being able to make decisions regarding policies and programs on the basis of social needs – the classic problem of a welfare economy – has gradually been formalized into questions of efficiency and competitiveness.

The talk will address some of the historical changes of welfare policies in relation to building construction and focus on understanding the hidden logics of welfare economics in order to elucidate how architecture and real estate are contingent on the economic policies of its time. Central to “the cost of architecture” is how costing and budgeting are activities that have changed from primarily being conducted in direct relationship to production expenses, to being done in relation to financial opportunities.

Erik Sigge is an architectural historian and preservationist, and Lecturer in theory and history of architecture at the Department of Architecture and the Built Environment, Lund University in Lund, Sweden. He is Head of Unit of Form, Design, Culture and primarily teaches courses in the bachelor program. Erik gained his PhD in architectural history from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and holds a master degree in Historic Preservation from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York (M.Sc. 2003).

The lecture is organised by Urban Studies Curriculum.

On Wednesday, April 24, from 17:30 to 19:00, there will be an information session on the master’s degree program in interior architecture. The meeting will take place in the common area of the Faculty of Architecture students of the EKA study building on the fourth floor (C-400). We will also broadcast the meeting on Zoom, which will also be recorded. The event will take place in Estonian.

In the information session, the head of the curriculum, Gregor Taul, will give an overview of the courses and projects that have taken place so far, on the one hand, and give a more detailed overview of the plans for next year. In addition, we will talk about admission and try to answer your questions.

You can familiarise yourself with the curriculum in advance in Tahvel. We also recommend looking at the department’s latest newspaper. Current information about student activities can also be found on the department’s website and on Facebook and Instagram.

If you are interested, please register via the Google form.

We warmly invite all MA Contemporary Art applicants and prospective students to the portfolio⌁afternoon!

Monday, 26 February, 15.00–17.00, EKA, room A501

Portfolios will be discussed and questions answered by Mirjam Varik, Sarah Nõmm and Siim Preiman from 2nd year, Elo Vahtrik from 1st year and heads of curriculum Anu Vahtra and Maris Karjatse.

The portfolio⌁afternoon is structured as a set of simultaneous one-on-one sessions in an informal setting, during which participants will get feedback on their work from students and staff, who will share their experiences and give advice on preparing a portfolio and filling in the questionnaire.

Each session lasts 20 minutes, to register please fill in the form here.

• Admissions to MA Contemporary Art are open until 4 March, apply on SAIS (Estonian applicants) or DearmApply (international applicants). 
• Information on admissions artun.ee.

MA in Graphic Design
Online info session
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 18:00–19:00h EET (local Estonian time) / 17:00h CET / 16:00h GMT … 

We invite prospective students to join the Master of Arts in Graphic Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts for our Online Info Session on 30 January, 18:00–19:00h EET. This will be an opportunity to hear more about the program, to meet and ask questions directly from teachers and students.

REGISTER HERE

Within the framework of the Open Lectures Series of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA, Birgitte Svarre will take the stage in the hall of EKA on 30th November at 6:15 pm with lecture “Public space / public life – an interaction – how to study and make room for it.” She talks about her work studying public life and creating space for it.

The lecture is preceded by public presentation of the book “How to Study Public Life” at 5:30 pm in EKA lobby.

Birgitte Svarre is the co-author of the book “How to Study Public Life”. She has a MA on Modern Culture, a PhD in Architecture and is CEO at BARK, Copenhagen, a consultancy focused on strategic development of places with a focus on both people and places. BARK is owned by the Building Heritage Foundation. Until 2022, Birgitte Svarre has been with Gehl Architects for more than 14 years consulting cities mainly in Northern Europe on human centered planning, public space and public life, including as head of Gehl’s Cities team. She is currently part of the advisory board for lively city centers for the Danish Foundation Realdania.

Architect Jan Gehl is an Adjunct Professor at the Aarhus School of Architecture, Professor (ret.) of Urban Design, The Royal Danish Academy and Founding Partner, Gehl Architects. In 1971 Jan Gehl published the seminal book Life Between Buildings launching a whole new thinking about the design and development of cities. Gehl’s first book and subsequent publications sparked a showdown with the car-centric cities and began mapping and describing people-friendly interventions in the infrastructure of cities. His books include Life Between Buildings, Public Spaces – Public Life, New City Spaces, New City Life, Cities for People.

The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines, not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties. Be there!

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn every academic year about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch previous lectures from www.avatudloengud.ee

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

In autumn 2023, the open architectural lectures will take place under the title Mobile Masters. The theme brings architects and theorists to Tallinn, who analyse architecture’s flexibility and the mobile practices of architects, spatial designers and artists.

Gregor Taul, the curator of the autumn lectures, introduces the program with the following words: “Architecture stands at a significant crossroads. Ten-year-old buildings are demolished and taken to the landfill. The lifespan of an interior design project is five years at best, if that. These bleak facts do not inspire confidence in a discipline that requires so many resources in light of such a short time perspective. What does ‘better not do anything’ mean for spatial design? What might ‘mobile architecture’ refer to or who is a ‘mobile designer’? How can moving people or things be a positive spatial practice?”

On December 7, Brussels-based Laurens Bekemans and co-founder of Brussels-based BC architects & studies, will be on the EKA main hall stage in Tallinn with the lecture The Act of Building.

BC is BC architects, studies and materials. BC stands for Brussels Cooperation and points to how BC grew – embedded within place and people. Started in 2012 as a hybrid office, BC is manoeuvring the boundaries of architecture in a doers manner. With three different legal entities, the team engages in a variety of experimental projects through which it designs bioregional and circular architecture, researches educational and construction processes and produces new building materials using local waste streams such as excavated earth

Laurens introduces his lecture in the following words:

From the first fieldtrips for the design of a library in Burundi to involving over 150 workshop participants in the construction of a public building in Belgium, these stories tell how BC engages in acts of building. The act of building is act and discourse.It is the complex effort of a temporary association to create an infrastructure of its own. In order to have a positive impact on our society, BC believes that architects need to intervene beyond the narrow definition of the professional who designs and controls the execution of buildings. 

Hence, BC ventures into material production, contracting, storytelling, knowledge transfer, community organization, which all influence BC’s design approach. The act of building has an impact and is at the same time a manifestation of values and ideas, which grew out of a broad network around a specific project. Building has a transformative power, driven by action, narrative and result. The lecture will guide you through key moments and key projects, which helped transform BC into the hybrid practice it is today. 

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The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines, not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties. Be there!

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn every academic year about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch lectures from previous years on YouTube or www.avatudloengud.ee

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Curator: Gregor Taul

In connection with the Delft University of Technology architecture course in Tallinn and EKA, Dr. Willemijn Wilms Floet gives an open lecture about Hofje – the type of building common in the Dutch cultural space, on October 12th at 18:00 in the hall of EKA.

The lecture unravels the secrets of the Dutch Hofje: how to direct the urban atmosphere; what can we learn about collectivity; how is this tradition taken forward by architects reflecting on the archetype and contemporary societal conditions?

The Dutch Hofje – a hidden green intimate courtyard enclosed by repetitive houses for singles – is a very inspirational typology for those working on sustainable social inclusive and green urban living environments.

In contrast to courtyards that were part of, for example, monasteries or speculative exploitation buildings, which were only built in a certain period, the architecture of charity hofjes effortlessly survived the late Middle Ages, the early capitalist era, the Enlightenment and the era from the industrialization period to the development of the post-modern service society. Up to the present time, dominated as it is by neoliberal ideas and market forces, the hofje remains a source of inspiration for (social) housing.

The hofje is deeply rooted in Dutch culture and therefore in Dutch collective memory. Time and again, it is put on the table by not only architects and policymakers, but also socially committed property developers or developers of luxury projects, because of all the positive connotations that surround it.

Dr. Willemijn Wilms Floet, assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology is teaching and researching how to make city out of buildings.

She developed her expertise in the documentation and analysis of architectural projects, notably: A Hundred Years of Dutch Architecture (Dutch 1999, English 2002, Chinese 2009). In 2009 she was involved in the organization of the exhibition ‘ From Berlage to Koolhaas_ a hundred years of Dutch Architecture’ in the CAFA Art Museum Beijing. Willemijn is the co-author of the Zakboek voor de Woonomgeving (2001) and editor of Het ontwerp van het kleine woonhuis (2005) and Architectuurgids Delft (2011).

Willemijn obtained a joint PhD degree Villard d’Honnecourt from Venice Faculty of Architecture (IUAV) in 2012 and TU Delft 2014. This architectural study on the Dutch almshouse typology reveals the secrets of green courtyards hidden within the perimeter block, by means of drawing. This resulted in two books ‘Het Hofje Bouwsteen van de Hollandse stad, 1400-2000’ (2016) and Urban Oases; Dutch Hofjes as Hidden Architectural Gems (2021).

Within the global community of the Faculty of Architecture Delft University of Technology she is a leading figure in carrying on the Delft method of plan analysis in-form-ing design, relating knowledge and creativity.

Since 2021 she is initiator and leader of the research programme Architectural Pedagogies at the department of architecture, building a broad platform to reflect upon design education.

The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines, not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties. Be there!

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn every academic year about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch lectures from previous years on YouTube or www.avatudloengud.ee

EKA Back-to-School Sale will take place on 2–3 September in the EKA foyer. You can find EKA merch, including sustainably produced sweatshirts, T-shirts, socks, erasers, pens and pencils, but also professional art supplies, such as paints, pens, sketching paper etc. from Gallery-G and Skizze Vunder shops.

The EKA Back-to-School Sale is open on Monday and Tuesday from 12pm to 4pm.