Tallinna Linnahall

This guide to Tallinna Linnahall follows architect Raine Karp's wide limestone terraces from their start as a five-year rush job for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, since Moscow had no coastline of its own and the sailing regatta needed one. You'll hear how the building opened in 1980 as the Lenin Palace of Culture and Sport, with an ice rink, a heliport and a ferry dock wrapped in local stone to look monumental rather than cheap, and how it kept working for thirty years. The guide then follows the argument over what to do with it once both halls closed within a year of each other. Climb the terraces yourself to see the cracks where birch saplings and skateboard wax have taken hold.