Pikku Huopalahti () is a

neighbourhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neighbourh ...

in the West of

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

between the Ruskeasuo neighbourhood and

Mannerheimintie Mannerheimintie () (previously known as ''Henrikinkatu'', ''Läntinen ja Itäinen Henrikinkatu'', ''Läntinen ja Itäinen Heikinkatu'', ''Turuntie'', ''Läntinen viertotie'', ''Heikinkatu''), colloquially known as Mansku, named after the Finni ...

(one of the main streets in Helsinki) in the east, the Meilahti neighborhood in the South, the Niemenmäki neighborhood and Huopalahdentie street in the West and the Vihdintie street and Etelä-Haaga neighborhood in the North. The neighborhood name means in Finnish 'Tiny Felt Bay' (after the original name in Swedish, Lillhoplax, was phonetically but inaccurately translated into Huopalahti in Finnish), with a bay of the same name forming most of the neighborhood edge on its West side, surrounded by a large park. This bay extends out to the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland (; ; ; ) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and Estonia to the south, to Saint Petersburg—the second largest city of Russia—to the east, where the river Neva drains into it. ...

. Most of the housing in Pikku Huopalahti is residential apartment building, primarily built in the 1990s. Pikku Huopalahti is home to around 10.000 people. Punamaenpolku 1 February 17 2009

As a neighborhood of Helsinki, Pikku Huopalahti finds itself as a

Sui generis ( , ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind" or "in a class by itself", therefore "unique". It denotes an exclusion to the larger system an object is in relation to. Several disciplines use the term to refer to unique entities. ...

. Helsinki's subdivision system uniquely divides Pikku Huopalahti as belonging to 3 separate city districts. The southern part belongs to the

Meilahti Meilahti (in Swedish Mejlans) is a neighbourhood of Helsinki between Mannerheimintie (the main entrance road to Helsinki) and a bay named Seurasaarenselkä. Most of the houses in Meilahti were built in the 1930s and 1940s. Meilahti is home to o ...

district and is numbered 1505. The eastern part belongs to the

Ruskeasuo Ruskeasuo (Brunakärr in Swedish, verbatim "Brown swamp") is a neighbourhood of Helsinki (Helsingfors in Swedish), about 3 kilometres north of the city center. With a population of 2670 (year 2005), Ruskeasuo is a rather quiet residential are ...

district and is numbered 1602 and the rest of Pikku Huopalahti belongs to the

Haaga Haaga () is a district and a former municipality in the Western major district of Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Fin ...

district and is numbered 2916. The headquarters of

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

Finland is located in Pikku Huopalahti on Paciuksenkatu, in a large cylindrical building designed by Heikkinen-Komonen architects. The final stop on Helsinki's 10

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

is also located in Pikku Huopalahti. The 4 tram travels on Paciuksenkatu to the south of Pikku Huopalahti on its way to

Munkkiniemi Munkkiniemi (; , Helsinki slang: ''Munkka'') is a Subdivisions of Helsinki#Neighbourhoods, neighbourhood in Helsinki. Subdivisions within the district are Vanha Munkkiniemi, Kuusisaari, Lehtisaari, Helsinki, Lehtisaari, Munkkivuori, Niemenmäki an ...

but never actually enters the neighborhood. The

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

had its Department of Dentistry, Institute for Oral Health, Department of Public Health and Department of Forensic Medicine campus in the North East corner of Pikku Huopalahti. After the university decided to relocate its facilities, the existing buildings were torn down in 2023. The City of Helsinki has prepared an area plan draft to redevelop the area. The neighborhood is also known as having a 'Legoland' effect because the buildings, mostly constructed in the past 20 years, all prominently display basic geometric patterns such as circles, squares, and triangles on the residential housing. Also, the use of light pastel colors, mostly white, light blue, and turquoise, make Pikku Huopalahti a very distinct neighborhood compared to the other neighborhoods to the north and west that have more traditional housing stock from the 1940s and 1950s. The architecture and urban layout is said to reflect criticisms of

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

present in the "Oulu school" of architecture often associated with Reima and Raili Pietilä. City districts partly forming and/or surrounding Pikku-Huopalahti are

Munkkivuori Munkkivuori (, literally 'Monk Mountain') is a Subdivisions of Helsinki#Neighbourhoods, quarter of the Munkkiniemi neighbourhood in Helsinki. The buildings and the plan of site are typical of the late 1950s. Most of the residential buildings in Mun ...

Niemenmäki Niemenmäki () is a quarter of the Munkkiniemi neighbourhood in Helsinki. Niemenmäki was constructed in the early 1960s. The nearby Shopping center provides everyday services to Niemenmäki inhabitants. Huopalahdentie road separates Niemenmäki ...

Etelä-Haaga Etelä-Haaga ( Finnish), Södra Haga ( Swedish) is a neighborhood of Helsinki, Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russ ...

and

Gallery

File:Pikku Huopalahti.jpg, Pikku Huopalahti neighbourhood, view from Paciuksenkadun silta (bridge on Paciuksenkatu). File:Pikku Huopalahti Helsinki Finland McDonalds.jpg File:Typical Pikku Huopalahti residential building.jpg File:Housing estate in Pikku Huopalahti.jpg File:Elementary school in Pikku Huopalahti.jpg

External links

{{coord, 60, 11, N, 024, 54, E, region:FI_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki, display=title Meilahti Ruskeasuo Haaga

Gallery

See also

External links