perifeeria

From Market to Mall, the Rebranding of Keskturg.

KESKTURG-OÜ(ization)

Tucked away from the main road and just around the corner, a recently installed vertical board, against the backdrop of rusted corrugated sheds, thrusts itself slightly up in the air, marking the advent of a new proprietorship. While the font, modern, minimal, bold, and sans-serif, is sufficient enough to be called chic, it is arranged vertically, with each letter per box, which adds up to the height of the new acrylic board. In contrast to the symmetry of its typography and layout of the design, the assemblage of these rusted metal sheds laid out in an almost grid manner underneath it appears to be ad hoc and undisciplined. The signage, summing the entire area or attempting to do so, is one of the few tactics that have been deployed as a process of rebranding by the new owners of Keskturg… the Astri group. Other graphics spread throughout the place, designed with carefully handpicked elements, to embed these into the fabric of the place. There appears to be a deliberate effort to ‘improve’ the face of Keskturg with a rebranding strategy that attempts to prepare for and neutralize a larger urban-scale project that entails intense spatial restructuring and economic interventions. However, this attempt at Moses-like development is being deployed by incorporating much of Jacob’s sensibility in the design and planning process.

The market, surrounded by Soviet era panel housing and run predominantly by Russian-speaking retailers, was founded in the Soviet era of 1947. Soon after regaining independence, the market underwent a violent privatization and transfer process with underlying conflict of interests that resulted in the homicide of a former deputy mayor of Tallinn, Mait Metsamaa (Wadowsky). In 1999, the Central Market was privatized to Turukaubanduse AS and finally bought by Astri Group in 2019. One of the few places left in Tallinn that resonates truly with the word market, Keskturg, until now has survived being polished and ‘modernized’ and somewhat retains the aura of an era bygone.

The first step into the market surrounds you with clothes hanging alongside the walkway. Most of the shops turned inside out towards the maximum reception of visitors, which some only have transactions through a small window. The smell of smoked fish and freshly baked pies wafts through the kiosks, and as one walks in, the space opens up into more stalls and kiosks surrounded by Babushkas chatting either with each other or bargaining with customers. The Bazar swelling up during weekends spills out on the road, dissolving its boundary. Weekends bring in people from different parts of the city to get fresh fruits, vegetables, tasty pickles, and cabbage, and get meat at discounted prices, while others gather outside one of the cafes that still serves кофе с молоком (milk coffee) for 50 cents.

Now the old market is being replaced by a more ‘modern’ mall-market hybrid that, in its design manifesto, aims to retain the proportion of the general public space and was hailed by the Jury for creating a strong community area which is lacking right now (Postimee). The emergence of recent discussion on Keskturg, as the new project comes in, has rendered it an outdated place, belonging to an obsolete era and a failed system. Many newspaper articles were found online to recite the replacement of old Keskturg with a new seven-story commercial and residential building as a success story (Postimees).

“I don’t see anything of environmental value in the Central Market, or at least no one has been able to show me what it would be like. The market could stay in its place, but it definitely needs to be rebuilt. Something similar to the modern Baltic station market could be built there. (Salumäe).

Aleksander Laane, member of the Estonian Greens political party,

Such characterization of being easily replaceable obliterates the chances for a discussion to acknowledge the intricate social-spatial fabric and environment that accommodates people belonging to different demographic groups.

While awaiting approvals for the final detailed plan that would mark the beginning of construction work, Astri Group, which already has operations of Keskturg in hand, has started small-scale interventions and decoration as part of an initial course of the renovation. Installation of labels on various segments of the market, fairy lights in walkways and open areas, along with increasing the presence on social media, are some examples.

Keskturg’s Facebook feed these days is filled with constant small updates that are happening in the market, making it better, while its presence on Instagram is proliferating with images captured with ‘retro and nostalgic’ filters. Hashtags of Keskturg have also found their way in the news feed and many ‘influencers’ and social media personalities with a, considerable number of followers have had their pictures taken in and with Keskturg being reposted on the official page managed by Astri Group.

Such a branding strategy, now stimulating a lifestyle, not only to normalize time spent in Keskturg, but also to inspire Keskturg (in its current form) to be photographed and celebrated in the news feed. Marking a shift from symbolic devaluation, what was previously known as ‘un-aestheticized’ is now part of the newly acquired aesthetics of framing.

Amongst all the tired and ‘rundown’ kiosks, a recently placed R-Kiosk sits behind the newly painted black minimal fence on which a board reading ‘FORUS’ security hangs, while a recharging hanger for Bolt scooters is also under installation.

There seems to be an underlying Bohemian aesthetic at play that keeps on manifesting itself, time and again, in the way the new owners chose to frame and describe the upcoming decorations. A constant emphasis is placed on giving Keskturg ‘a new look’  (@tallinnakeskturg (FB)). The desire to create an attractive living environment, while at the same time, the emphasis is placed on making it more green and sustainable, keeps coming up. These new discursively produced images and symbolism aimed at manufacturing a new identity of Keskturg seem to render its past and current state as dilapidated, instilling the regeneration and renovation processes as inevitable for the improvement of the area. Thus, what ends up being produced and framed as a ‘tired, old, rampant chaos and disorder’ is an unavoidable consequence of such facelift strategies.

Moreover, the rhetoric of socio-environmental sustainability and public participation has already been deployed by the developers. The large-scale regeneration project with extensive spatial reevaluations will somehow attempt to incorporate the existing stakeholders and attempt to preserve the lively ‘Traditional Market’ like environment on the ground underneath a residential complex. The vocabulary adopted by the developers, which leans on the ideas of Jacobs, seems to present a construction of a utopian space where all the stakeholders, displaced retailers, and users of the space are incorporated into the environment. This adaptability suggests the tendency of neoliberal discourses to engulf critique and instrumentalize it into innovative trends and design features.  

In the case of Keskturg redevelopment, attempting to retain the ‘liveliness’ of the marketplace, addressing concerns of stakeholders, attempting to retain or mimic the aura of the market, soon to be disappeared, and generating a dynamic streetscape for pedestrians and cyclists while indicating minimal incorporation of vehicular traffic suggests; the co-optation of all these discourses as a supplement in the process of neoliberal urban development. Demonstrating a project filled with tropes of community building, incorporation, informality, ‘streetscape dynamic’, and sustainability allows it to become more incontestable than ever. However, institutionalizing such troops by incorporating them in designated spaces of a master plan obliterates their innate spontaneity, flexibility, and the complex relations in which they interact, narrowing them down to mere labels that can be tossed around in design.

These symptoms suggest an ongoing morphosis of neoliberal discourses that insulates itself not by contesting criticism but by assimilating and subsuming it. Capitalizing on critiques, it is evident from the project of Keskturg (Re)development that Jacobs-style urbanism has become all too adaptable to liberal appropriation (“The People’s Playground”).

For all its strangeness in the city, Keskturg, now being transformed into Keskturg OÜ, a ‘better version’, is depicted by 3D visualisations advertised aggressively by the developer. Unlike what was claimed earlier regarding incorporating various stakeholders, many of them Babushkas, these visualizations largely show young white couples with modest physiques in a clean environment, cleared of the smell of fish and pies. The largest of these visualisations is hammered right at the main hall of Keskturg, enveloping its entire facade.

As the developers enthusiastically claim to redefine the market, make it into a more community-centered place, sustainable, green, hip, while also designing a modern streetscape as opposed to what is present on the site. I question the feasibility of these suppositions in a place that will be changed beyond recognition…