A Controversial Heritage. Residential Architecture of the Transition Period in Estonia

Abstract

This article looks at residential architecture during the transition period in Estonia from the late 1980s to the early 1990s through the eyes of hertitage experts. It endeavours to sketch the general tendencies and changes in architecture, as well as highlight typical problems in restoration, which arise today in the evaluation of the architectural heritage from that period. The end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s are regarded as a transition period, when Estonia transitioned from a totalitarian state to a democratic nation restoring the pre-II World War Republic of Estonia. The processes during that time affected society as a whole, ushered in important socio-economic changes and also significant cultural changes. Even though culture as a phenomenon is difficult to define, it is generally understood as the common understanding and collection of values shared by a community, and can then be treated as cultural change according to their perceived collective transformation.1 The collapse of the Soviet Union and the social and economic processes that were accompanied by cultural changes immediately before and after the collapse also affected homes and home life. The