History

As late as the 1940s, Otaniemi was part of the Hagalund manor and used as farmland. In 1949, the Government of Finland purchased the lands of Hagalund Manor for use as the campus of the Helsinki University of Technology and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. First to be built was the student campus of the Helsinki University of Technology, which also served as one of the Olympic Villages in the 1952 Summer Olympics. Several thousand students currently live in Otaniemi. The region has since been built up around TKK and VTT, and is at the core of Finnish scientific and technological activities. The area is architecturally unique, boasting buildings designed by leading Finnish architects including Alvar Aalto, Heikki and Kaija Sirén, and Reima and Raili Pietilä. Aalto is an alumnus of TKK, and the designer of both the city plan for the Otaniemi area and the main building of TKK.