Лауттасаари: Остров в Хельсинки

Island in Helsinki, Finland

Lauttasaari (; Drumsö) is an island in Helsinki, Finland, about west of the city centre. Together with some surrounding unpopulated small islands, Lauttasaari is also a district of Helsinki. With 23,226 residents as of 2017, the island is Finland's second largest by population, after Fasta Åland. Its land area is 3.85 km. Lauttasaari is primarily a residential area but also contains services, including several marinas and canoe clubs. Although close to the city centre, Lauttasaari has not been entirely built up. Notably, almost the entire shoreline remains in public use, with footpaths, beaches, playgrounds, patches of forest, and rocky outcrops. The name Lauttasaari literally means "ferry island", although nowadays, the island is connected to the rest of Helsinki and to the city of Espoo by bridges, causeways, and the Helsinki metro, which has two stations in the district. The island has two postal codes: 00200 and 00210.

The island of Lauttasaari has probably been a recreational area for the Finns even before the Middle Ages and it has had a Finnish name. This name was abandoned when a Swedish colonist built a house on the island. Some of the Swedish place names have preserved original Finnish place names, such as Lemisholm and Porovik. The name of the island is first mentioned in as Drommensöö, in 1543 as Drommensby and in 1556 as Dromansöö and Dromssöö, which has led to its current name Drumsö. The name has traditionally been seen as coming from the Swedish language nickname Drumber meaning a fat and clumsy person. The Finnish name Lauttasaari was taken into use in 1919 and refers to the ferry traffic between the island and mainland Helsinki at the time.

There used to be two farms in Lauttasaari, Heikas and Bertas. In 1650 Queen Christina donated the island to the city of Helsinki, but this donation was revoked during the Great Reduction and the farms were returned to private ownership. They were later combined into the Lauttasaari manor, whose current main building was commissioned by Claes Wilhelm Gyldén in 1837. The southernmost part of Lauttasaari was taken into the use of the Russian military during the Crimean War. No garrison was founded in Lauttasaari, but fortifications and ammunition depots of the coastal artillery were built on the island. After Finland became independent the areas was owned by the state of Finland, but as the Finnish Defence Forces had no use for the area, in 1927 it was transferred to the city of Helsinki, which founded a folkpark in the area. According to Eliel Saarinen's 1918 Pro Helsingfors plan a large part of Lauttasaari would be designated as a harbour area, with a train connection from the Leppävaara railway station at the current sites of Ring I and Länsiväylä. Nothing ever became of this plan.

In 1919 Lauttasaari and Munkkiniemi were separated from the rural municipality of Helsinki to form the municipality of Huopalahti (Hoplax). In 1917 Lauttasaari had been formed as a tightly populated community. Together with the rest of Huopalahti, Lauttasaari was annexed to the city of Helsinki on 1 January 1946. Other former factories in the area include the Hellberg radio factory (Oy Radio E Hellberg Ab), the wood veneer factory of Mahogany Oy and the glue factory of Eri Oy. The area has also included the head offices of Helkama and Lääketukku.

Katajaharju is a peninsula in the northwestern part of Lauttasaari, and it is now considered a part of the Myllykallio area. Katajaharju is located entirely to the north of the Länsiväylä highway. The houses on the shore areas of Katajaharju are terraced houses or detached houses with large lots. The buildings in the middle part of the peninsula mostly consist of apartment buildings built in the 1960s. Katajaharju is connected to the island of Kaskisaari via a walking bridge.

Of the inhabitants in Lauttasaari, 79.0% are Finnish speaking, 13.6% are Swedish speaking and 7.4% speak another language. Of the population over 25 years old 70.6% have a higher education diploma (as of 31 December 2018). Most of the residential buildings in Lauttasaari are apartment buildings. The median size of apartments in Lauttasaari is 63.3 square metres. Most apartments have two bedrooms. Most of the apartments were built in the 1950s and 1960s; apartment construction in the area diminished in the 1970s, until new apartments started being built especially in the Vattuniemi area in the 2000s. 35.7% of the apartments in Lauttasaari are rental apartments.

There are two bridges connecting Lauttasaari to mainland Helsinki. The Lauttasaari bridge leads from Ruoholahti to Lauttasaarentie, and the Lapinlahti bridge is part of the Länsiväylä highway leading west from Helsinki, located to the north of the Lauttasaari bridge and built in the 1960s. Upon completion the Lapinlahti bridge was the longest bridge in Helsinki at the time. Before the Länsiväylä highway was built the street Lauttasaarentie was part of the main road leading west from Helsinki. The street Jorvaksentie, the predecessor of Länsiväylä, started from its western end. In the 1950s the original Lauttasaari bridge from 1935 was seen as far too narrow, and it was dismantled in 1967, two years after the highway bridge to the north of it had been completed. The current four lane Lauttasaari bridge was built in place of the dismantled bridge. The bridge is 317 metres long and 23.5 metres wide, made of reinforced concrete, and its span is 56.6 metres.

Lauttasaari is an organisationally active district. This is evident from the influential, politically independent local Lauttasaari Society. A local voluntary fire brigade was founded in 1916 by the initiative of postman Emil Wathén with financial support from Julius Tallberg, for which Tallberg donated the building lot and building supplies for its own fire brigade house. The amount of traffic in Lauttasaari is going to increase, as the number of visitors to the Lauttasaari metro station and the Koivusaari metro station are projected to reach 30 thousand people per day in total.

Lauttasaarentie is the main thoroughfare in Lauttasaari, home to many residents, and the location of the shopping mall Lauttis, which also serves as one of the entrances to the Lauttasaari metro station. The shopping mall is the commercial centre of the island, and near its geographical centre.

The district of Lauttasaari is divided into four subdistricts.

The subdistrict of Koivusaari is a separate island, separated from Lauttasaari by a narrow channel. It had no residents as of 2017. Its postal code is 00200. The Koivusaari metro station was built in anticipation of extending the island by land fill and constructing residential buildings on it.

The subdistrict of Kotkavuori comprises the northeastern part of the island, nearest Helsinki city centre. The housing is mainly apartment buildings. The subdistrict has one of the two main hills of the island, where the iconic Lauttasaari water tower was located in 1958–2015. Kotkavuori had 8,117 residents as of 2017. Its postal code is 00200.

The subdistrict of Myllykallio comprises the western part of the island. The housing is mainly apartment buildings. The subdistrict has one of the two main hills of the island. The area of Katajaharju is the part of Myllykallio on the north side of Länsiväylä motorway. The housing is mainly private residential houses. Myllykallio had 7,066 residents as of 2017. Its postal code is 00200.

The subdistrict of Vattuniemi comprises the southern part of the island. The area was built up in the 1950s as an industrial zone. Since 2000, there has been a significant change in the makeup of the area, and several office and industrial facilities have been demolished, with apartments being built to replace them. Currently, the median price of residential property is relatively high, causing the residential makeup to consist of the young and affluent. The main streets are Särkiniementie on the western side of the area, and Vattuniemenkatu on the eastern side. Vattuniemi had 8,043 residents as of 2017. Its postal code is 00210.