White towers stand above pine trees beside a central pool, with low rows of houses between them.
What Tapiola looks like
Blocks stand among pine trees and open lawns in this district of Espoo. Most of the buildings date from the 1950s and 1960s. Low rows and detached houses sit between multi-storey blocks. White towers rise above the pines. Curved streets run through the eastern and western neighbourhoods, while the northern one follows a straight grid.
The centre is built around the central pool, with fountain jets and flower beds along its far edge. The 13-storey stands beside it, clad in enamelled steel. The Garden hotel and the Espoo cultural centre complete the ring around the water.
is an 11-storey white tower with 54 flats and a concrete frame. It is the highest and oldest building in Itäkartano, east of the centre. Hakalehto has low houses that each wrap a private courtyard. The Suvikumpu blocks are shades of green with white between.
shopping centre has a white front with red lettering over its shop windows. The has a glass entrance beside perforated metal panels, with a white apartment tower and cranes behind it.
has flower beds planted in large collections. Silkkiniitty is a wide grass field north of the centre, running up to the northern neighbourhood.
The Kino on Mäntyviita has 194 seats and is one of the few original old-style cinemas in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The , by Aarno Ruusuvuori, is a concrete building with 600 seats.
Shot in Tapiola
The 1964 film Make Like a Thief used the Central Tower's lookout and its restaurant. It also shot outdoors at the central pool. Trench Road, the 2004 film, used an estate agency office on Tapionaukio as the agent's office. Both its outside and its inside were filmed.
Make Like a Thief, 1964
The film also shot in the surroundings of the central pool and in the car park beside it. The Central Tower and the Espoo cultural centre surround the pool.
What Tapiola can double for
Vällingby Centrum in Stockholm, Sweden
Vällingby's plan put high-rise buildings near the metro stations, with self-contained houses and green areas around them. That is the same mix of tower and low row that gives Tapiola its silhouette. The centre routes traffic and goods underground, so a street frame there has no through road in it. A tower and some pines in the top of the frame are what make the shot Tapiola. Try searching metro station towers now.
Columbia Town Center in Columbia, Maryland
Lake Kittamaqundi, a man-made lake created in 1966 in Columbia's Town Center, has offices beside its shore. That puts open water in the middle of a planned centre, as Tapiola's central pool does. The shoreline was dredged in 2010 and 2011, creating two new peninsulas. The Mall in Columbia is in the lake's vicinity, so check the wider frames for it. Try searching town center lake now.
