Every design for Pirkkala

Pirkkala sits on the south-western edge of Tampere, along the eastern shore of Lake Pyhäjärvi, where waterways once met and traders built the area's first church. The trading place grew important enough to be given legal protection of its own, a 'birk', and one researcher traces the municipality's name to it. The whole Pirkanmaa region, once covered by Great Pirkkala, is named after it.

Its position still shapes daily life. Tampere-Pirkkala Airport lies in the southwest of the municipality, the Tampere Ring Road runs straight through it, and its neighbours are Tampere, Nokia, Lempäälä and Vesilahti. Much of its compact area is water, and Kullaanvuori and Hannunharju are among the high points in between. Near the centre at Naistenmatka stands the white new church, chosen as the most beautiful new building in Finland in the year it was finished, and around Lake Vähäjärvi gather the sculptures of the cast-iron symposia, an idea of Villu Jaanisoo, an artist who moved to Pirkkala from Estonia.

Anyone who grew up here will know the shapes on the map: the long Pyhäjärvi shore, the sculptures around Vähäjärvi and Suupantori, where Jaanisoo's Peruspirkkalalainen, the everyday Pirkkala resident, keeps watch.