The Estonian Centre for Architecture (ECA) is a non-profit institution that was established in 2008 by the Estonian Academy of Arts and the Union of Estonian Architects, to develop the architectural culture in Estonia and to foster contemporary Estonian architecture abroad.
ECA’s mission is to raise awareness about how high-quality architecture and urban space are essential for everyday life, and to support Estonian architects and architecture offices that seek to expand into export.
By integrating the knowledge and competence of the architecture sector within other fields in our society, the organisation contributes to development and innovation in the field of architecture, and in other related fields.
ECA is one of the organisations carrying out Estonian architectural policy at local, regional, national and global levels, with the aim of crossing borders, reaching new audiences and serving organisations and individuals.
Moreover, ECA works in collaboration with like-minded partners around the world, including the City of Tallinn, several Estonian ministries and local governments, companies and entrepreneurs, as well as those further afield, to synthesise information and objectives to create better public spaces.
ECA is headed by architect Hannes Praks, founder of the design and research studio kuidas.works. The main direction of Praks-led ECA in the coming years is to advance national approaches to sustainable architecture.
After Sustainability: Architecture Remains
Escalated global tensions imposed new tasks on architecture, leaving architects with a reduced amount of resources for the creation of social mobility, diversification, and changeability as the usual parameters of conceiving architecture.
What approach must we take in such a setting? The mass architecture will not disappear, but it needs to accept the resources available to it. Access to quality in architecture should not be limited to a fortunate minority.
To sustain social cohesion, we have to create environmental opportunities for everyone. Architecture serves beyond aesthetic purposes; it’s a powerful transforming tool that creates social life, but for that, we have to raise the building profession by moving it into the architecture of the unseen, unpleasant, and hidden.
How to conceive and construct an architectural program that remains stabilising enough to support architecture amidst ever-changing environmental conditions in perpetual crisis?
We are facing a challenge to operate within unsustainable and prevailing conditions that need to be converted into resources for the future development of society.
Utilising local resources would reinforce existing structures and facilitate the transformation towards improvement and progress. Defensiveness and reusefulness will be the basis of future construction in architecture.
Buildings need to be in use for a much longer time, despite our economically driven lifestyle. How does undermining a stable, traditional, and conscious experience in architecture influence contemporarity?
Finally, as we implode urban planning strategies, what can we learn from the Estonian experience? Source by ECA and photos Courtesy of MINT LIST.
