{"id":1162,"date":"2019-05-13T09:51:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T09:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tim-dawson.com\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2022-01-17T12:09:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T12:09:38","slug":"flight-of-fancy-tallinns-seaplane-harbour-museum-is-an-atmospheric-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tim-dawson.com\/?p=1162","title":{"rendered":"Flight of fancy: Tallinn’s Seaplane Harbour Museum is an atmospheric triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Far the greatest thrill at Tallinn\u2019s Seaplane Harbour Museum<\/a>, is the building itself. It has the vast, mysterious quality of a Ken-Adam-designed James Bond film set. Its scale and proportions are those of a modernist cathedral on steriods with a shadowy atmosphere to charge the imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standing on a strategic outcrop of rock in the Gulf of Finland, it comprises three vast, interconnected concrete domes, each large enough to house aircraft. The submarine that is the museum\u2019s prize exhibit, is a minnow in this vast, sparsely-lit cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contained within the 36m x 36m structure can be found traces of much of Estonia\u2019s recent past. The seaplane harbour itself (as the hanger is known) was built from concrete to an innovative Danish design in 1916. With independence in 1919, the \u2018harbour\u2019 became home to Estonia\u2019s fleet of Short 184 seaplanes<\/a>. Manufactured in Belfast, supply of these came with the UK\u2019s military support for the fledgling Baltic republic, one strand of British attempts to turn Russia\u2019s revolutionary tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How effective were these open-cockpit biplanes at patrolling the Gulf of Finland is anyone\u2019s guess. By the time the Soviet union annexed Estonia in 1940, the 75mph seaplanes were well past offensive usefulness. For the half century that Estonia was a Soviet Republic, the hanger became part of a vast military annex occupying much of Tallinn\u2019s waterfront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Red Army sold the complex in a fleeting moment on the cusp of Estonia\u2019s independence. There followed a bizarre nine-year dispute between the state and developers. The state triumphed eventually and a \u20ac14m transformation commenced, 70% funded by the European Regional Development Fund. It opened as a museum in 2012, and won the EU cultural heritage prize the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n