Turku 1000
Stop 28 of 50
1828

The university leaves; Engel redraws the city

After the fire of 1827 two decisions changed Turku for good. The university left for Helsinki, and the burned town was rebuilt to a plan by the German-born architect Carl Ludvig Engel, with streets so wide that a fire could not jump across them.

Empire · Grand Duchy
The big story

The university leaves; Engel redraws the city

For almost two hundred years Turku had been the place where Finland’s priests, officials, doctors and scholars were trained. After the fire, the university moved to Helsinki, the new capital. At the same time the burned town was given a new shape, one that you can still see on any map of central Turku.

Turku loses its university

  • A university without a home. The fire of 1827 badly damaged the Academy building and destroyed almost the whole library (stop 27). Teaching stopped Well documented.
  • The emperor decides. Emperor Nicholas I ordered the university to move to Helsinki. The decision is usually dated to the autumn after the fire Likely.
  • A new name. In Helsinki it became the Imperial Alexander University in Finland. It began working there in 1828, with new statutes that said it served “the Emperor and the Fatherland” Well documented.
  • The bigger picture. Helsinki had been the capital since 1812, and the Senate and the Bank of Finland had moved there in 1819 (stop 25). With the university gone too, almost every national institution had left Turku Well documented.

Why Helsinki?

  • Close to the government. The Russian rulers wanted the university near the Senate and the officials who were trained there Likely.
  • Away from Sweden. Turku was seen as too far from Russia and too closely tied to Sweden. Helsinki, closer to St Petersburg, was meant to look east Well documented.
  • A new building. Engel designed a main building for the university on Helsinki’s Senate Square, finished in 1832. Its library was built as a separate house, thanks to the lessons of the Turku fire Well documented.
  • Growing up. In Helsinki the university grew from around 400 students to about 3,000 during the 19th century. Today it is the University of Helsinki Well documented.

Engel redraws the city

  • The architect. Carl Ludvig Engel was born in 1778 in Charlottenburg, now part of Berlin. He worked in Turku in 1814–1815, where he met Johan Albrecht Ehrenström, the man who was replanning Helsinki Well documented.
  • The architect of Helsinki. Engel went on to design the Senate Square in Helsinki and many of its buildings. In Turku he also designed the new top of the Cathedral tower and its pulpit (stop 27) Well documented.
  • Chosen for Turku. Governor-General Arseny Zakrevsky proposed Engel to make a new plan for the burned town Well documented.
  • Approved. Engel’s plan for Turku was approved on 15 December 1828. It was based on a regular grid of straight streets, much more spacious and fire-safe than the old town Well documented.

Turku after the university

  • Still the biggest town. Even without the university, Turku stayed Finland’s largest town until the late 1840s. It had 12,550 inhabitants in 1815 and 17,178 in 1850 Well documented.
  • A town of trade. Without professors and students, Turku turned more and more to trade, shipping and, later, industry (stops 29 and 31) Likely.
  • Ninety years without a university. Turku got universities again only in 1918 and 1920, when its citizens collected money to found Åbo Akademi and the University of Turku (stop 36) Well documented.
How do we know?

The imperial decisions, the university’s statutes and Engel’s plans survive in archives, and many of his drawings are kept in Finnish collections. The reasons for moving the university are partly an interpretation by historians: the decisions themselves rarely explained why.

TurkuHelsinkiCapitalGovernmentBankUniversityBiggest townUniversities
Turku and Helsinki on the scales, 1809–1920. Step through the years and watch the balance tip.The weights are symbolic: each counter stands for one institution or title.
Why it matters

1828 is the year Finland’s centre of gravity moved east. Helsinki became the city of government and learning, and Turku had to find a new role as a town of trade and ships. The rivalry between the two cities, sometimes friendly and sometimes not, still lives on today.

On the lighter side

Why Turku has wide streets

Walk around central Turku and you will notice something: the streets are straight and wide, and there are tree-lined parks between the blocks. That is no accident. It is a fire-safety plan from 1828, designed so that the town could never burn down in one night again.

Rules against fire

  • Wide streets. In Engel’s plan, streets had to be at least 30 ells wide, about 18 metres Well documented.
  • Fire zones. Wide esplanades, avenues lined with trees, divided the town into separate fire zones. A fire in one zone should not be able to jump to the next Well documented.
  • Green firebreaks. Inside the blocks, strips of garden with trees kept groups of houses apart Well documented.
  • Low wooden houses. Wooden houses with more than one storey were banned. Anything taller had to be built of stone or brick Well documented.

A model for Finland

  • Copied across the country. Engel’s Turku plan became the standard for Finnish town planning. Similar plans followed for Tampere (1830), Hämeenlinna (1831), Porvoo (1832), Jyväskylä (1833) and Mikkeli (1837) Well documented.
  • The Finnish small town. Straight streets lined with low wooden houses and gardens became the typical look of a 19th-century Finnish town Likely.
  • Did it work? No Finnish town plan could stop every fire, but the wide streets and green zones made the great town-wide fires of earlier centuries much less likely Likely.

What you can see today

  • The grid. Look at a map of central Turku: the straight grid of streets on both sides of the river comes from Engel’s plan Well documented.
  • Wide enough for the future. Engel planned for horses and carts, but his wide streets later made room for trams (stop 33) and cars (stop 44) Likely.
  • Hidden differences. In Luostarinmäki, which did not burn (stop 27), you can still walk the narrow, crooked lanes of the town before the plan, and compare Well documented.
18 mEsplanade

Click any house to set it on fire, or press the button.

The rules of the new plan

Start a fire in the old town, then try the same in Engel’s plan. Which one burns down?A toy simulation with invented street patterns. Only the rules come from Engel’s plan.
How do we know?

Engel’s plan for Turku and the building rules that came with it were official documents, and they survive. The street grid itself is the best evidence: you can measure it on a modern map. The fire simulation on this page is a toy, made only to show the idea.

Why it matters

Every time you walk or cycle down a wide street in Turku, you are using a fire-safety rule from 1828. Engel’s plan shows how a disaster can change a city for centuries, and how good planning can make a town safer for people who are not yet born.

Sources and further reading

  1. University of Helsinki — the move from Turku in 1828, the new name Imperial Alexander University, the statutes of 1828, student numbers and Engel’s main building and library.
  2. Carl Ludvig Engel — life, the years in Turku 1814–1815, the Turku plan after the fire (street widths, esplanades, firebreaks, wooden houses) and later town plans.
  3. Great Fire of Turku — Governor-General Zakrevsky, Engel and the new plan approved on 15 December 1828.
  4. Turku — capital 1809–1812, the reasons for the move, population in 1815 and 1850, the largest city until the late 1840s, and the grid plan after the fire.
  5. Senate of Finland — the move from Turku to Helsinki in 1819.
  6. Bank of Finland — founded in Turku in 1812 and moved to Helsinki in 1819.
  7. Turku parishes. History of Turku Cathedral: the 19th century — Engel’s work on the Cathedral and the new town plan.

Spotted a mistake? Know more?

This site is open and free. Corrections and additions are welcome — every page lists its sources so you can check them.