Tallinn becomes Olympic. Designing the urban environment

In 1978, in preparation for the Tallinn sailing events to be held as part of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, an urban design group was established under the leadership of designer Matti Õunapuu (b. 1945). He brought several colleagues into the group, including Tiit Jürna (b. 1953), who had just defended his dissertation on Olympic urban design, and Taimi Soo (b. 1947), who had graduated in 1973. For them, it was the first project of this scope and type, dealing with the design of the urban environment. They were all graduates of the Estonian State Art Institute’s faculty of industrial art, which was founded in 1966 to stand alongside the older department of applied art focusing on materials. Until then, the concept of ‘design’ (Est. disain) had not yet been accepted or used in the context of education or practice. The curriculum created under the departmental leadership of Bruno Tomberg paid greater attention to the environment, its holistic design, and the corresponding methods, as opposed to the object-oriented nature of product design. This significantly expanded the existing understanding of design possibilities.
Preparations were made throughout the years prior to the Games: the cityscape was observed and analysed from the design perspective, with design ideas tested out at the 1979 Baltic Regatta. In the summer of 1980, Tallinn’s city centre and Pirita district received a new appearance, using previously unseen techniques. The aim was to fill the city’s empty spaces with voluminous but transparent elements, strongly contrasting earlier strategies for decorating the city on special occasions. Decorative architectural forms in light sailcloth gave the city a festive appearance. A new visual solution was also created for sales kiosks and transport signs, and a signage system was produced for the Pirita Olympic Sports Centre.