Pirkanmaa Regional Museum

Local Authority Museum

Cultural environment and local culture services

Pirkanmaa Regional Museum is in charge of most of the regional functions of museums in and around tampere. The focus of its operations is on the maintenance of the cultural environment and provision of guidance and assistance to the many small museums in the region. Pirkanmaa Regional Museum supplies expert assistance in issues involving archaeology, architecture, buildin repairs, local cultural work, civic activities and preservation.

The facilities of the museum are located at Museum Centre Vapriikki in the former engineering works of Tampella factory in the unique industrial setting of Tammerkoski.

Pirkanmaa Regional Museum is also on Facebook!

Official expert and authority

Under a cooperation agreement made with the Finnish Heritage Agency, Pirkanmaa Regional Museum is in charge of safeguarding the cultural environment in the region. More information about the cooperation is available here.

Pirkanmaa Regional Museum is the regional authority in land use projects, issuing statements on land use plans and participating in negotiations between authorities. The museum issues, upon request, approximately 900 expert statements annually on matters concerning preservation of the cultural environment. Most of the statements are issued to project planners, municipalities, other regional authorities, various governmental agencies, and owners of cultural heritage sites.

The satements are issued free of charge. Requests for statements regarding preservation of the cultural environment should be send, with appended materials or links to such materials, by email to pirkanmaan.maakuntamuseo@tampere.fi or via the Lupapiste portal (in Finnish or Swedish only).

Under the Act on the Openness of Government Activities, statements issued by Pirkanmaa Regional Museum are public, except insofar as they concert issues that are classified or covered by privacy law. Existing statements can be viewed in the Siiri database (in Finnish only).

Issues concerning preservation of the cultural environment are assigned to archaeologists and building researchers as indicated on the map. Contact information can be found by scrolling down the page.

Advisory and information services

Pirkanmaa Regional Museum provides the public with information about research on the archaeology and the built environment in the Tampere Region as well as statements issued by the museum on sites of cultural significance.

It also supplies information and advice on issues concerning conservation, building repairs and the maintenance of arhaeological monuments under the Adopt a Monument programme.

Pirkanmaa Regional Museum provides assistance to local history museums. The service is available to privately owned collections and museums run by societies or associations in the Tampere Region. Pirkanmaa Regional Museum gives advice on hoe to repair the local museums’ buildings, conserve objects, care for and catalogue photographs and other collections items, and hoe to use the Siiri database. It also organises events such as the annual Regional Museum Day for museum enthusiasts.

Pirkanmaa Regional Museum has created a cultural environment library for the use of authorities, researchers ans exhibition organisers. Materials in the library can be searched online via the PIKI library portal. Materials in the library are not available for loan, but you can reserve a time for viewing the material in the museum.

Upon request, Pirkanmaa Regional Museum provides training on various topics including archaeology, prehistory, built heritage, architecture, cultural landscapes, building conservation and protection practises. It also organises public events, such as annual Pirkan maan alta semminars in the spring presenting results of archaeological field work undertaken in the region, events in conjunction with the National Archaeology Days and the European Culural Heritage Days in the autumn and an annual Christmas seminar on the theme of the built environment.

Pirkanmaa Regional Museum maintains a collection management system that serves as a repository of information on the cultural environment and museum collections in the region. Entitled Siiri, the system also includes a geographic information database of sites and areas of historical value in the region. Most of the information is publicly available in the online version of the Siiri database (in Finnish only). Information for land owners and others with an interest in the cultural environment can be accessed and printed out from the system.

Streetview of autumn in Ikaalinen Wanha kauppla, old houses and linden trees lining the street, yellow leaves on the ground.

Cultural environment and its protection

In Finland, the term ‘cultural environment’ refers to environments whose distinguishing characteristics are expressive of cultural development and of interaction between humans and the environment, past and presesent. The cultural environment can also be described as consisting of cultural landscapes, archaeological monuments, architectural environments and traditional rural biotopes. Examples of cultural environments include old fields, roads, bridges, industrial buildings, prehistoric settlements with cemeteries and hunting sites, underwater monuments such as wrecks, important battle sites, town centres and suburban residential areas, as well as farmyards in rural areas.

Protection of the cultural environment is a way of appreciating our common cultural heritage and passing it to future generations.

You too can participate in cultural environment management

Would you like to participate in the management of the cultural environment? Here are some suggestions:

Get engaged in land use planning and permit processes. You can find information about them in newspapers and on municipal websites. participating in the activities of recidential, local history and environmental organisations also allows you to influence the planning of residential environments.

Preserve old built heritage — even taking care of your own house is a way of maintaining the cultural environment. Pirkanmaa Regional Museum provides free expert assistance for building repairs through the advice services of a master builder of traditional buildings. Practical hands-on assistance is also available, as well as information on possible sources for repair funding and competent professionals to do the job.

Enrol yourself, your friends, your company or your civic association to maintain an archaeological monument in the Adopt a Monument programme. Also schools, municipalities, congregations and corporations can become adopters.

Participate in the activities of your local history museum: collect old artefacts and stories from where you live, show others how things were done in the old days, organise a private guided history tour. Pirkanmaa Regional Museum promotes the maintenance of local culture by providing advisory services and training for civic societies that maintain many museums, often on voluntary basis.

We welcome contributions from everyone! We are also happy to receive new ideas on how to preserve our cultural heritage.