A Walk on the Roof: Linnahall and Tallinn’s Shifting Shoreline

From the end of Mere Boulevard in Tallinn , Linnahall appears as a long, low mass of limestone and concrete laid between the Old Town and the bay, kept deliberately beneath the line of the medieval silhouette so that the spires remain visible from the water. Broad stairways climb its flanks to a roof paved as a public square, and from there a sequence of terrace steps down toward a small pier, a helicopter pad and the open Gulf of Finland . Under that surface sit an amphitheater for 4,200 people, a foyer of 6,000 square meters, an ice hall, cafés, a bowling alley and a recording studio.