thumb|right|Uspenski Cathedral
Katajanokka (; ) is a neighbourhood of Helsinki, Finland, with around 5,000 inhabitants in 2023. The district is located adjacent to the immediate downtown area, though in the first major town plan for Helsinki from the mid-18th century, the area fell outside the fortifications planned to encircle the city.
Originally, Katajanokka was a headland of the Helsinki peninsula but is now technically an island, as a small canal was dug across the base of the headland in the 19th century. There are four bridges across the canal connecting Katajanokka with the Helsinki Market Square and Aleksanterinkatu area in mainland Helsinki.
Buildings in Katajanokka include the former Katajanokka prison (now a Tribute Portfolio hotel by Marriott), the Uspenski Cathedral, the Katajanokka Casino, Wanha Satama, the Stora Enso head office designed by Alvar Aalto, the building of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Katajanokka Terminal used by Viking Line. Katajanokka forms a central part of the South Harbour. In the 19th and 20th centuries Katajanokka was known as an important hub for goods transport and even became the largest import harbour in Finland, but since then its role as a residential area has increased. Katajanokka is served by the Helsinki tram lines 4 and 5.
Katajanokka is one of the most distinguished neighbourhoods in Helsinki. Katajanokka's residents have included former Finnish President (from 1982 to 1994) Mauno Koivisto, composer Einojuhani Rautavaara and author-artist Tove Jansson.
Overview
The south side of Katajanokka is dominated by a passenger harbour which is frequented by large cruiseferries traveling between Helsinki, Stockholm, Mariehamn, Tallinn and Rostock. The rest of the district comprises co-operative apartment buildings and several small parks. The western part of the residential area, known as the "Old Side" of Katajanokka, is an upscale neighborhood and a well-preserved example of early 20th century Art Nouveau architecture, though up until the mid-19th century – while the centre of Helsinki was being filled with stone buildings – the area was essentially still a wooden shanty town. The eastern part was for a long time a closed military area containing a naval base and shipyard, later a commercial shipyard. It was redeveloped in the 1970s and 1980s into a mainly residential zone, often referred to as the "New Side" of Katajanokka. The new residential area is considered an exceptional example of modern town planning. A major part of the project was the conversion and extension of the old Russian naval barracks to house the Finnish foreign ministry.
thumb|left|Laivastopuisto ("Navy Park") is a park on the northern shore of Katajanokka.
The northern shore of Katajanokka still serves as a base for the Finnish coast guard, Helsinki maritime police as well as the Finnish icebreaker fleet.
thumb|[[Housing cooperatives built around 1902 in the popular Jugendstil style.]]
Landmarks of Katajanokka include the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, also known as Uspenski Cathedral (architect Alexey Gornostaev, 1868), the Merikasarmi complex of the Foreign Ministry (architect Carl Ludvig Engel, 1825) and the Finnish headquarters of Stora Enso (architect Alvar Aalto, 1962; the most controversial of Aalto's works).
thumb|right|[[Helsinki County Prison|The Katajanokka prison (now a Tribute Portfolio hotel by Marriott).]]
Another famous building in Katajanokka is the former district prison of Southern Finland. The old prison dates back to 1837, and functioned as a prison until 2002. The prison underwent an extensive interior renovation to convert the cells of the prison into hotel rooms, with sets of two or three cells combined to make up the current hotel rooms. The Best Western Premier Hotel Katajanokka opened in May 2007 with 106 guest rooms. Renovations cost a reported 15 million euro. As a historic building, strict limits were imposed on the redevelopment due to the strict regime of protection for historically significant buildings that is in effect in Finland. Thus, as a hotel, the exterior of the building has been preserved, as has the central corridor of the old prison and even the old prison wall. A restaurant at the lowest level of the hotel has attempted to keep much of the character of the old prison alive. However, an actual former prisoner told a Finnish newspaper<!--Helsingin Sanomat?--> that the supposed "prison cutlery" is very different from what the prison actually used: for example, prisoners never drank out of tin cups.
thumb|left|Katajanokka is the harbour of many large cruiseferries; [[M/S Gabriella from the Viking Line fleet docked to the Katajanokka Terminal.]]
During the development of Katajanokka in the 1970s and 1980s, many old red brick industrial buildings were spared by converting them for public uses, such as a primary school and an indoors sports arena. There was controversy over the demolition of the former cadet school of the Russian navy, built in the early 20th century. Vacated by the Finnish military in the 1980s, the building survived, with various uses, mainly as a cultural centre. In the late 1990s, the city of Helsinki announced that it was going to demolish the building to build a new apartment building in its place. This caused huge protests, and the demolition was put off for almost a decade, mainly because of opposition from local inhabitants, and the Green League party.
thumb|View of the Katajanokka waterfront and [[Uspenski Cathedral from Pohjoisranta embankment]]
The navy school building was finally demolished in autumn 2006. However, additional problems resulted: Contrary to what the city of Helsinki and the architecture bureau responsible for the new building had thought, there was no solid rock bottom underneath the old building, but only scattered rocks here and there. Because the original building had stood there since Czarist Russia, no original construction plans were available, and therefore the new plans had to be redone from scratch.
thumb|right|The Katajanokanpuisto park ("Katajanokka park") was renamed as Tove Janssonin puisto ("[[Tove Jansson's park") on the 100th anniversary of her birth. The ceremony was attended by Moomintroll himself.]]
thumb|right|"Possutalo" (Finnish for "the pig house", named after its pink colour) in eastern Katajanokka previously served as a youth activities house but is now a kindergarten.
The local community organisation of Katajanokka is called Katajanokkaseura. The organization publishes an annual regional magazine, Katajanokan kaiku (Finnish for "The Echo of Katajanokka").
Katajanokan ympärijuoksu
There is an annual running event called the Katajanokan ympärijuoksu (Skattuden runt in Swedish), open for everyone who lives in Katajanokka or has relatives living there. The running event has several categories according to age and sex. Children have separate categories for boys and girls, and are divided into two or three age groups. Adults (which also allows teenagers) have only one category, but results are separate for men and women.
History
thumb|right|Old wooden houses in Katajanokka in the 1860s. In the background is the [[Uspenski Cathedral which had just been completed at the time. Photograph by E. Hoffers in 1868.]]
thumb|right|The [[Katajanokka Airport during the aviation days in winter 1928. On the left-hand side is the edge of the Lutikkalinna building with its radio mast. The broadcast station of the radio battalion formerly located at the building was used to send Finland's first common radio broadcasts in the 1920s.]]
The area of Katajanokka was originally mostly forest. In the 17th century there was an ironworks on the northern shore of the area, and there was a grain storage magazine on the Laukkasaari island (Swedish: Lökholmen) to the south of the area. The eastern part consisted of pasture grounds for the bourgeoisie.
Urban settlement of Helsinki expanded from what is now the Senate Square to Katajanokka already in the 18th century. In the 1749 zoning plan by Augustin Ehrensvärd Katajanokka was an important part of the defense wall surrounding the city as the peninsula had an important strategic value. This zoning plan was never implemented, and fishing families started moving to Katajanokka.
The outskirts settlements formed on the peninsula remained mostly untouched for decades even after the rest of Helsinki had been completely rebuilt according to the zoning plan made by Johan Albrecht Ehrenström in the early 19th century. The Katajanokka canal separating Katajanokka from the mainland and connecting the South and North Harbours of Helsinki with each other, already proposed in Ehrenström's plan, was ultimately only built in 1844.
Name
The name "Katajanokka" literally means "Juniper Point" but the connection with junipers is just a coincidence resulting from a mistranslation.
The neighbourhood was originally known in the 17th century by the Swedish name Estnäs Skatan ("Estnäs Point"). The Finnish-speaking population did not understand Swedish, so the word skata ("point") became kataja ("juniper").
The Swedish name Skat Udden can be found from a 1775 map, while the Finnish name Katajanokka was first mentioned in the Suometar newspaper in 1856.
Barracks
thumb|right|The recently completed [[Merikasarmi building seen from the northern harbour in 1827.]]
thumb|right|The military harbour of the [[Baltic Fleet on the northern shore of Katajanokka in 1907.]]
From the 1810s to the 1830s barracks buildings designed by Carl Ludvig Engel and Anders Fredrik Granstedt for the use of the Russian military were built on the eastern tip of Katajanokka. In 1831 the barracks were taken into use by the First marine crew of Finland, which also caused the name of the barracks to be established as Merikasarmi ("Marine barracks") instead of the Katajanokka barracks. This branch of the military was disestablished in the 1880s when the Grand Duchy of Finland introduced conscription. After this, the area became the base of the Russian Baltic fleet.
After Finland became independent the garrison moved to the Finnish Defence Forces. It hosted the Helsinki navy station and military station (until 1958), the broadcast station of the radio battalion (in the 1920s) and the Valmet docks until the middle 1970s. The command of the Finnish Navy was located in a red brick building built in the 1880s until 1983 and the Guard Jaeger Regiment used the barracks in the 1960s. The deteriorated barracks buildings were renovated and restored for the use of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1984 to 1989. New side buildings on either side of the old artillery courtyard were also built at the same time. A gate dating to 1776 was left as part of one of the side buildings. It is part of the artillery magazine built at the same time as the Suomenlinna fortress. Also a copy of the western officers' barracks was built on the eastern side of the barracks according to Engel's original plan. Katajanokka finally became a subject of central interest in the 1870s. The zoning plan in the area was confirmed in 1895. According to it, the southern shore of the peninsula was reserved for a harbour and the area north to it as a residential area. The tip of the peninsula remained in the use of the garrison.
A sudden growth in ship traffic to Helsinki was in dire need of more space, Tallqvist used the harbours of Gothenburg, Copenhagen and Hamburg as inspiration. Tallqvist's plan was completed in 1882 but its implementation had to wait for the Helsinki harbour rail to be built. According to the plan, the coastal area to the south of the Kruunuvuorenkatu street was reserved for the harbour and the area to the north of it was reserved for residential use. The tip of the peninsula remained in use for the garrison. The plan did not include much in the way of aesthetics, and it included hardly any parks or lawns. In the same year, the engineer Herman Norrmén used Tallqvist's suggestion for his final zoning plan, which was confirmed in February 1895. One of the cranes was unloading cargo from the SS Niobe when a chain of cargo carriages crashed into one of the crane's legs at a spot where the crane tracks and the railway tracks crossed. The crane fell down and was completely destroyed, but its driver suffered no injuries. The last four harbour cranes in Katajanokka were dismantled in January 1986.
The harbour activity also had side effects. From the 19th century to the middle 20th century Katajanokka was an area of ill repute, where illegal sales of liquor and prostitution were often practised. For a long time, the image of the northern shore of Katajanokka was dominated by large warehouses belonging to a freight forwarder. These have later been renovated into the use of restaurants and cafés. The northern shore used to also host a garbage pier, where excrement was loaded into barges which took it to the countryside to act as fertiliser for the country fields. However, sometimes garbage transporters dumped their cargo right into the sea.
The cargo harbour had become unprofitable, and the central location of Katajanokka made it a poor choice for cargo traffic. Rail transport to the South Harbour and Katajanokka ended on 30 April 1980. The last four harbour cranes were dismantled in January 1986. Traffic on the cargo harbour rail decreased as the South Harbour became mostly a harbour for car ferries. Car ferry traffic started on 9 July 1974 by the ship MS Viking 5 to Stockholm, Sweden. The site of the old harbour rail yard now hosts a wide avenue called Katajanokanlaituri, and many old warehouse buildings along it have been renovated into hotels and conference centres.
Guarding the harbour area in Katajanokka was improved on 3 May 1994 to improve passport control and customs activity. All persons present at the harbour area had to have an identity document with a photograph with them. In early May 1997 the gate control of the entire South Harbour was transferred over to a security company.
Shipyard
thumb|right|Katajanokka in 1970. The Katajanokka shipyard is at the background and in the front between the harbour cranes is the [[Katajanokka Terminal, which served as a customs warehouse until 1977.]]
From 1945 to 1970 the Valmet shipyard on the eastern part of Katajanokka built about 160 ships, of which some were sent as war reparations to the Soviet Union. The shipyard employed about a thousand people and caused significant traffic past the residential blocks. The crampedness of Katajanokka placed limits on how the activity could be improved and production volume be increased. In the end Valmet had to find a new place for the shipyard. The last ship launched from the shipyard was the tanker MT Tebostar on 26 April 1974. There was a scrapyard for ships for some time at the site. After the Valmet dock activity in Katajanokka had gradually moved to Vuosaari the old equipment pier was leased for the use of the icebreakers on 24 March 1975. Individual icebreakers had been spending their summers at the shores of Katajanokka also before this. For example in summer 1971 an old system was kept in force, where two icebreakers were at Jätkäsaari, three at Hietalahti and three near the Valmet dock in Katajanokka. The icebreakers were connected to the city's district heating network on 10 December 1979. Until this they had been generating their own heat and hot water themselves. The current icebreakers are Kontio, Otso, Voima, Urho, Sisu and Polaris. In summertime, the icebreakers spending their summer at Katajanokka can also be rented for private events.
Plans
There was a plan to build a house for architecture and design (Armi) in Katajanokka, with an architecture design competition held in 2001. The building would have been located next to the Stora Enso main office, in place of the Kanavaterminaali building. No funding could be found for the project and the organisations behind it parted ways, so the project was finally abandoned in 2006. In 2007 there was a plan for a hotel at the same site, named after Alvar Aalto and riding on his reputation, with the Swiss architecture bureau Herzog & de Meuron invited to design it.
In 2006 there was a plan to build a bridge from Katajanokka to Laajasalo. The bridge would have been taken into use for trams and pedestrian traffic. In later versions the bridge was replaced with a tunnel, and a line going via Tervasaari and Sompasaari was found as an alternative route. Later, the Crown Bridges project was designed to pass through Hakaniemi.
There was a plan to build premises for the Helsinki emergency dispatch centre in Katajanokka. However, the rent of the premises was seen as too high, and the emergency dispatch centre was moved to Kerava. A new user for the caves was found, but its identity has not been made public. Explosions during the excavation of the caves caused damage in the properties along Luotsikatu.
Architecture
thumb|200px|Jugendstil Building, Luotsikatu|right
Katajanokka is principally known for its fine examples of Jugendstil architecture. Other prominent styles apparent on the island are modernism, manifested in Alvar Aalto's Enso-Gutzeit Building, and the red-brick industrial former harbour buildings and prison (now a Best Western hotel).
Politics
Results of the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election in Katajanokka:
- National Coalition Party 35.0%
- Green League 20.1%
- Social Democratic Party 13.0%
- Swedish People's Party 8.8%
- Left Alliance 8.8%
- True Finns 8.0%
- Centre Party 3.8%
- Christian Democrats 1.2%
Sights
thumb|right|The former county prison of Helsinki has been renovated into a hotel.
- Allas Sea Pool
- Flying Cinema Tour of Helsinki, virtual cinema
- Finnida and the former building of the Mint of Finland (35)
- The former Helsinki County Prison and prison chapel (31)