Harmala Airport

Härmälä Airport
(Härmälän lentoasema)
Lepolantie 35

Bertel Strömmer, 1941
Unknown, 1964
Style: Functionalism

When the Tampere airfield began construction in the 1930s, there was no need for an airport or separate runways. Only during the planning of a runway did it become necessary to also construct an actual airport building to serve passengers. The city's construction office designed, under the leadership of Bertel Strömmer, a one-storey terminal building, which contained a waiting room for the passengers, a bar, an office, and a weather station. Flight control was placed in the tower section in the middle. The building was designed in a pure functionalist style and it was completed in 1941. The intent was to later expand and raise the building, but the only expansion made was the barrack-like widening of the airfield side in 1964 that has somewhat diminished the original's clean architecture. Due to the demands placed on air travel by jets, a new airport was constructed at Pirkkala in 1979, leaving the old terminal as the headquarters for a skydiving club. The terminal is historically significant, but its modifications and the changing surroundings has left it somewhat obscured in the middle of Härmälä's suburban housing. The former runway now serves as a parking lot for the Pirkkahalli exhibition centre.