Pyynikki Summer Theatre

Pyynikinrinne is a district of Tampere, Finland. It is located west of the city center. Pyynikinrinne is bordered on the south by the Pyynikki Esker nature reserve, on the north by Pirkankatu and on the east by Mariankatu. The western boundary of the district is the former border between Tampere and Pohjois-Pirkkala municipalities. The neighboring parts of the city are Pyynikki, Ylä-Pispala, Amuri, partly Särkänniemi and Kaakinmaa. Pirkankatu, which has long been a highway from the center of Tampere to the western parts of the city, was called the Pirkkala Highway until 1956. The Tipotie road, which once led across the Tampere–Pori railway line to the shores of Lake Näsijärvi, diverges from Pirkankatu at the former Tampere City Transport's department garage, also known as Rollikkahalli.A competition was held for the design of the Pyynikinrinne area, which was won in 1903 by architect Lars Sonck. The town plan drawn up by Sonck was confirmed in 1907. The town plan was in line with Art Nouveau ideals: blocks of varying sizes and shapes, streets following terrain and end views of the streets. The building stock of Pyynikinrinne is mainly protected. A particularly interesting object from an architectural point of view is the complex of villas bordering Palomäentie.The oldest surviving building stock on Pyynikinrinne is represented by, among others, Marjatta Hospital (Lambert Pettersson, 1912), the Technical School (R. Björnberg, 1912), the Durchman House (Oiva Kallio, 1915) and the Olán House (Wivi Lönn, 1916). Most of the district was built in the 1920s. The typical Pyynikinrinne Building Type is a two-storey wooden apartment building representing the classicism of the 1920s. The arm of Pyynikintori was built at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s from taller stone houses, designed by Martti Välikangas, Yrjö Lindegren, Jaakko Tähtinen and Veikko Kallio, among others. Architect Bertel Strömmer has had a special influence on the nature of Pyynikinrinne. Strömmer designed a large part of the Pyynikinrinne buildings and partially modified Sonck's town plan. Palomäentie 13 was Strömmer's first plan in his own name. Strömmer lived and kept his office at Palomäentie 22, a building that has since been demolished. Strömmer's surviving works in the Pyynikinrinne district include Pyynikki Sports Field with its auditorium (1922), Kisakentänkatu 10–14 (1924–25), Pyynikki Parish House (1928) and the vocational school (1939). After graduation, the vocational school was the largest public building in Tampere. Other significant buildings in the area include Pyynikinlinna (Jarl Eklund, 1923), Haapanen Villa (Veikko Kallio, 1929), Tampere Lyceum High School (Hjalmar Åberg and A. Willberg, 1935), Bishop's Residence (Gunnar Wahlroos, 1936) and Tampere Conservatoire. A special feature is Kilometritalo (Heikki Tiitola, 1923); this two-story residential building is 138 meters long. Pyynikintori, formerly known as Aleksanterintori or, familiarly, Plassi, once served as a marketplace and a center for horse trade. Domestic animals, including goats, cows, sheep and piglets, were sold at the Heinätori square, which is connected to Pyynikintori. In memory of the market square there is so-called Vaakahuone building (Lambert Petterson, 1913) between Heinätori and Pyynikintori. Today, Pyynikintori mainly operates as a bus terminal and parking area. The first bus station building in Finland, the western long-distance bus station (Bertel Strömmer, 1929), was built on Pyynikintori. An almost similar building was built for Tampere's eastern long-distance bus station, which was located in the Sori Square near the current bus station. The original station buildings functioned as service stations after the completion of the current Tampere Bus Station (1938) and have since been demolished. The Pyynikki sports field serves as a starting point and goal for women marathon event called Likkojen Lenkki, among other things. The Pyynikki Hall is a national and international venue for several indoor sports, such as volleyball and basketball. In addition, there is a small sports field along Palomäentie called Pikkusantamonttu. On the Pyynikinrinne, the Tampere Vocational College Tredu operates in three locations: Pyynikintie, Pirkankatu and Santalahdentie. Areas of study emphasize craftsmanship, such as the fashion industry, the barber-hairdresser line, and the electrical and construction engineering industry.

Pyynikki (Swedish: Pynike) is a district and a nature reserve in Tampere, Finland. It is located in the Pyynikinharju ridge, between the city center and the western district of Pispala. Pyynikinharju is the highest esker in the world, rising 85 meters above the level of lake Pyhäjärvi.Tampere Circuit was a motorsport race track which ran on public streets of Pyynikki. In 1962 and 1963, the Finnish motorcycle Grand Prix on Tampere Circuit was a race of the Road Racing World Championship.

Pirkankatu is a busy, east–west street in Tampere, Finland, which forms the southern border of the Amuri district. The districts of Kaakinmaa and Pyynikinrinne are located south of the street. To the east, the end of Pirkankatu is the Hämeenpuisto park, in the middle stages of which it connects to Hämeenkatu. In the west, on the border of Pispala, Pirkankatu becomes the Pispala Highway.Pirkankatu is one of the driveways leading to the city center, and it is one of the main routes used by Tampere public transport. In 2021, the Tampere tramway art stop designed by sculptor Jaakko Himanen was completed on Pirkankatu, in front of Pyynikintori. Pyynikintori is the terminus of the first stage of the tramway, from where trams run through the city center to Hervanta.At the eastern end of Pirkankatu is the cityscape and historically significant Pyynikki Church Park, where the landscape is dominated by the Alexander Church (1881). Across the street is the nationally significant Central Library Metso (1986), designed by architects Raili and Reima Pietilä. Most of the residential buildings on Pirkankatu are wooden houses built in the 1920s. Such is, for example, the 138-meter-long Kilometritalo (1923). The most notable of the stone apartment buildings is Veljeslinna (1952), which is part of a large, sealed city block, which is rare compared to typical Tamperean architecture.

The Pyynikki observation tower (Finnish: Pyynikin näkötorni) is a 26 meter observation tower in Pyynikki, Tampere, Finland. It was completed in 1929 by the design of the city architect Vilho Kolho, and built using local red granite. The tower stands 75 meters above the level of the adjacent lake Pyhäjärvi (152 meters above the sea level) on the ridge crest of the Pyynikki Esker.The top can be reached by a lift, but walking up the stairs offers various observation windows. The open top offers a clear view of the city of Tampere as well as lake Näsijärvi on the north and lake Pyhäjärvi in the south. Entrance to the park and cafe is free but climbing the tower costs 50 cents for children or 2 euros for adults. The Cafe has its own historic donut recipe which has remained unchanged for 80 years.

The Pyynikki Circuit or Tampere Circuit is a former motorsport street circuit in Tampere, Finland. The circuit was a 3.608 km (2.242 mi) long clockwise circuit in a park (or on public streets) in the district of Pyynikki. The roadraces were known as "Pyynikinajot" and were first run from 1932–1939. After an interruption caused by the Second World War they were revived in 1946, running until 1971. For the 1962 and 1963 seasons the Finnish Motorcycle Grand Prix, a round of the Grand Prix motorcycle racing world championship, was held on the Pyynikki Circuit. The circuit was found to be too narrow, and therefore the Finnish Grand Prix was moved to the Imatra Circuit from 1964. Races on the Pyynikki Circuit were banned in 1971 for safety reasons, but in the final year the future World Champion Jarno Saarinen won two classes.

The Holy Cross Church (Finnish: Pyhän ristin kirkko, Swedish: Heliga korsets kyrka) is the name given to a religious building affiliated with the Catholic Church and is located in the city of Tampere, Finland. It offers religious services as the Mass in different languages (Finnish, Polish and English) in order to meet the different nationalities that make up the congregation. The Catholic parish of Tampere was formally established on September 3, 1957. Masses were held for the first time in Hotel Tammer, later in Emmaus. The congregation got its own church on November 22, 1969, being dedicated to the Holy Cross, and blessed with a parish hall, a presbytery, and other venues.

Amuri is a district in the city of Tampere, Finland. Starting from the 19th century, Amuri was originally mainly a residence area for the working class. It consisted of blocks of wooden houses built together, which were replaced by low-rise apartment buildings in the 1970s and 1980s. The worker apartments in Amuri typically had shared kitchens, with two or four families sharing a kitchen together. One block has been preserved as a museum. Amuri also has a disused train traffic stop. Amuri stretches from Hämeenpuisto to Sepänkatu and from Paasikiventie to Pirkankatu. For tourists, there is a lot to see in Amuri: the Metso main library, the Tampere Art Museum, the Tampere Rock Museum and the traditional worker residence block. The amusement park Särkänniemi is located immediately north of Amuri on the shore of the Näsijärvi lake. Places to eat in Amuri include the Metso library café, the old-fashioned Worker Museum café, the Amurin Helmi restaurant, or the amusement centre Hepokatti. In Amuri there is an international school called FISTA, the Finnish International School of Tampere.

Kaakinmaa is a district in Tampere, Finland, located in the city center. It includes the area south of Pyynikki Church Park (Pyynikin kirkkopuisto) between the Hämeenpuisto park and the Mariankatu street. To the south, the area extends to Eteläpuisto on the shores of Lake Pyhäjärvi. The neighboring parts of the city are Nalkala in the east, Amuri in the north and Pyynikki and Pyynikinrinne in the west. Sometimes Kaakinmaa is incorrectly considered to belong to Pyynikki and Pyynikinrinne; however, Kaakinmaa has its own district. The most important street running through the area is Satamakatu, which rises west of the slope of Pyynikinharju from Laukontori, which together with Mariankatu and Hämeenpuisto form a busy traffic route from Pyynikintori to Ratina. Along the Koulukatu street there is the Koulukatu Field, where the hockey field and ice rink are frozen in winter. In Kaakinmaa, the Tampere Workers' Hall and the Tampere Workers' Theatre are located, as well as the old Pyynikki Brewery and the Klingendahl factory property. Next door to Klingendahl is the former Tampere Epidemic Hospital, built in 1910, which was used as a student dormitory until the summer of 2009 after the hospital closed. Almost all of the residential buildings in the area are apartment buildings, built mainly in the 1960s and 1970s to replace the earlier wooden houses built in the late 19th century. The primary schools operating in Kaakinmaa are the Alexander School of the 1st–6th grades and the Pyynikki School of the 7th–9th grades (former Tampere High School for Girls). At the corner of Satamakatu and Koulukatu is the Swedish-language school (Svenska samskolan i Tammerfors), which includes grades 1-9 of the comprehensive school and the upper secondary school. A brewery has previously operated in Kaakinmaa. In 1897, a brewery was established on the corner of Tiilitehtaankatu and Papinkatu, which later became Oy Pyynikki. In 1903, another brewery operating in Tampere, Oy Iso Oluttehdas, and Oy Pyynikki merged to form Näsijärven Osake-Oluttehdas, which in 1920 took the name Oy Pyynikki Ab. Until 1992, Pyynikin Brewery produced the Amiraali beer brand, which is popular with the local population and is still available in Japan with a label with the image of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō (1848–1934) from the Tupgō flagship Mikasa's museum store in Yokosuka. The brewing business in Tampere was discontinued soon after Pyynikki Oy came under Sinebrychoff. The same fate in the hands of Sinebrychoff was later experienced by the Pori Brewery. In 2012, the Pyynikki craft brewery was established in Tampere to continue the tradition of the Pyynikki brewery, although for the time being, due to the lack of suitable premises, it operates in Rahola. The name of Kaakinmaa derives from the kaakinpuu tree, also known as pillory, used to punish evildoers on the site of Tampere's co-educational high school until the second half of the 19th century. After the settlement of Kaakinmaa, the kaakinpuu tree was transferred to a sand pit along the current Pirkankatu, where it was located until the new penalty law abolished cropping in 1894. The town plan for Kaakinmaa was completed in 1868. In 1870, the area of Kaakinmaa was still uninhabited, but twenty years later there were already about a thousand inhabitants. At the beginning of the 20th century, the inhabitants of Kaakinmaa were mainly engaged in various professions.On the western side of Kaakinmaa, along Mariankatu, in 1936–1973, there was a Christmas Sign Home owned by the Finnish Tuberculosis Resistance Association (Filha ry), which cared for the newborn children of mothers with tuberculosis. After the operation of the nursing home ended, the building was demolished and there is now an apartment building on its site.

Särkänniemi is a district of the city centre of Tampere, Finland, located on the shores of Lake Näsijärvi, north of the districts of Amuri and Finlayson. The most famous sights of the district are Näsinneula and Särkänniemi Amusement Park, but in addition to that, the district also houses the Haarla's old paper mill building. The Amuri railway stop has also ceased operations in Särkänniemi. The Särkänniemi district also includes the Siilinkari islet in Lake Näsijärvi. Särkänniemi is bordered on the south by Paasikivenkatu (formerly Paasikiventie), on the other side of which is the Amuri district, and on the west by the Santalahti district. The district includes the Onkiniemi residential area. The Särkänniemi district is joined by Santalahti on its west side, which is named after the bay of the same name in Lake Näsijärvi. The first industrial plant in the area was the Eliander match factory, founded in 1852; Sahanterä Oy (1889), Näsijärven Pahvitehdas (1909) and Haarla Paper Mill (1920) were born later. On the west side of Särkänniemi, Onkiniemi was a popular beach as early as the 19th century. The first sub-town plan of Särkänniemi was approved in 1915 and the town plan of the whole area in 1921 and the town plan of Santalahti in 1945. Some of the streets in the area have been named according to the factory's owner families; The founder of the Haarla paper mill, Rafael Haarla, a trade counselor, according to whom Haarlankatu has been named, donated the statues of Hämeensilta to the city of Tampere in 1929.A hotel and spa with restaurants and water experiences are planned around the amusement park, as well as new apartments. It will also be possible to travel to the area by tram in the future as part of the Tampere light rail network.

The Tampere Tunnel (also the Rantaväylä Tunnel, Finnish: Rantaväylän tunneli) is a 2,3 kilometre-long road tunnel in Tampere, Finland. It was opened 15 November 2016, six months before scheduled. The Tampere Tunnel is the longest road tunnel in Finland. It is part of Highway 12, which passes north of Tampere city center. 36,000 vehicles a day drive through the tunnel.

The Alexander Church (Finnish: Aleksanterin kirkko; Swedish: Alexanderskyrkan) is a stone church in Tampere, Finland, and it is part of the Tampere Cathedral Parish. It is located in the Kaakinmaa district in the city center of Tampere, on the edge of the Hämeenpuisto park along the Pirkankatu street. The church, designed by architect Theodor Decker, was built of brick between 1880 and 1881. It is named after Emperor Alexander II of Russia. The church is surrounded by Pyynikki Church Park (Pyynikin kirkkopuisto), a former cemetery.The church is a long church with a tower, the short sides of which have short cross-arms at the polygonal choir end. The facade of the church is dominated by large round and circular windows and protruding pillars, which, however, have no structural significance but are purely architectural decorative elements. The upper lofts of the three-aisled church hall covered with wood are supported by brick pillars. The church, which pursues a continental cathedral style, represents a later neo-Gothic style with influences from different styles. The church has 1,430 seats. The church has a 56+3-voice electro-pneumatic pipe organ built by the Kangasala's organ factory from 1939. The altarpiece was painted by Alexandra Frosterus-Såltin in 1883 and is called "The Glory of Christ". As a rule, the church hosts the St. Thomas Mass about every three weeks.

The Pyynikki Esker (or the Pyynikki Ridge; Finnish: Pyynikinharju) is the tallest longitudinal esker in the world, located in Pyynikki, Tampere, Finland. The ridge rises to a height of 160 meters above sea level and 80 meters above the surface of Lake Pyhäjärvi. The Pyynikki Esker belongs to the ridge formation that extends from South Ostrobothnia to Salpausselkä. The ridge formation continues west of the Pyynikki Esker as a rocky ridge known as the Pispala Esker (Pispalanharju) and Tahmela. To the east, after the settlement of Tampere, the ridge becomes the Kalevankangas esker, where there has been a cemetery by same name for almost 150 years. In Kangasala, the ridge formation continues as the four ridges called Kirkkoharju, Kuohunharju, Keisarinharju and Vehoniemenharju. The Pyynikki Esker, like longitudinal ridges, is mainly gravel and sand. There are still some old European red pines growing in Pyynikki, whose roots are partly in the air, as the sandy ground rolls down towards Lake Pyhäjärvi over the years. Vegetation on gravel ridges has not only pines but also junipers that are protected. However, juniper berries can be picked when you remember that the branches should not be folded or the juniper should not be removed from the ground. There also grows Norway maples, which give the ridge a beautiful color in autumn. Mountain currants also grow on these ridges. In the middle of the heathers you can find golden chanterelles and in the autumn a few other edible mushrooms. Lingonberries also thrive on the southern slopes.The Pyynikki observation tower, built in 1929, is still in use. It has a ground-level café. There are wooden stairs at several points on the slopes of Pyynikki, along which you can reach the top of the Pyynikki Esker from the shore of Lake Pyhäjärvi.