Rapakkala

History

In 1756 the house was owned by Juhana Christersson and in 1800 by the patron Matti Hagerlund.

Fire insurance

The Rapakkala house was insured against fire in 1862, when it was owned by master painter G. H. Granholm. At that time there were several buildings on the plot. The main building was located on Anundilankatu and was built in 1860. It was still unplanked and unpainted. The rooms consisted of a hall, a pantry, a baker’s room and a hallway. The second, small residential building was located on the northern boundary of the plot. It was built in 1859, unlined and unpainted. It had only one room, heated by a tiled stove. The outbuilding was old and located on the eastern side of the plot. It contained a stable, a barn and a chalk mill. There was also a one-roomed old shed on the southern boundary of the plot. On the eastern boundary of the plot were a couple of buildings of lesser value which were not considered appropriate to insure. One was a log outbuilding and the other a timber-framed latrine.

During the next generation, the house underwent changes. The owner was the master painter J. H. Granholm. In 1883, the insurance company was informed that the dwellings built in 1859 and 1860 had been joined by an annexe. The resulting angular building was unplanked, but painted in red paint. There were seven rooms: two halls, two chambers, a baker’s room, a painter’s workshop and a hallway. There was also a porch in the corner of the building. The interior had been renovated when the extension was built. The rooms had new tiled stoves, floors and wallpaper. The log outbuilding, which now stretched along the entire eastern boundary of the property, was partly the same as in the previous policy, but had been extended on the site of the former uninsured outbuilding. The building contained a barn, stables, barn, chalet, wooden shed and latrine. The old outhouse was still in place. The gate was from Anundilankatu and the other sides were fenced.

Modification drafts

In 1896, E. Ikäläinen drew an alteration drawing, according to which one room was added to the semi-detached building on Anundilankatu. At the same time, the building was raised with an attic section. The building is clad in tripartite panelling, with a central vertical section with six-paned, classically framed windows. The attic section and the lower part of the building were rendered smooth. Apparently the planking in the lower section was to be replaced and the window in the central zone would remain as it was. There would be a handsome neo-renaissance gateway along the street. The alteration drawing by Onni von Zansen dates from 1898. There had been three separate porches on the courtyard side of the residential building at the corner of Anundilankatu and the street separating it from the street. They were now combined to form a veranda with partly open sections supported by columns and railings and enclosures formed by the old porches. The dwelling had two kitchens and five rooms, plus a hallway. There was a shed in the courtyard and an outbuilding on the eastern boundary which was renovated. The building contained a stable, a barn, a shed and a toilet.

In 1933, two rooms were taken from the south end of the building to house the bus station’s goods office and waiting room. A door was made on the roof side. The building’s façade cladding was drawn as a tripartite, but both the lower and central sections were clad in the same vertical cladding. The windows were six-paned. In 1936, the building housed a Sampo, for which a small box-shaped illuminated advertising sign was made. In 1949, the building was used as a bus station. On the roof side there was space for the public, ticketing, storage, kiosks and a café. The alley-side wing housed a kitchen with a boiler, a toilet, a dining room, a living room and a bedroom. On the street frontage there were shop windows along the entire length of Anundilankatu.

Current situation

Street-side building
Long-cornered residential building, west wing from 1860, north wing later, pantile cladding, saddle roof, display windows. The lining of the facade facing Anundilanvahe follows the neo-renaissance design by E. Ikäläinen in 1896. The windows were later changed from six-paned to two-paned.

Exterior building
Demolished and no new one had yet been built to replace it.