Helsinki Quarterly interviewed researcher Miika Norppa, whose doctoral thesis covers the development of Helsinki’s central areas from 1550 up to the present day. In the past few decades, the main focus of planners has returned to the inner city after a period of suburban development.

City officials have long striven to manage Helsinki’s reputation and visual appearance through place-making and marketing communication. In the 2000s, these actions have been grouped under the umbrella of “city branding” – a practice that has become increasingly popular throughout the world in the context of global intercity competition.

The present issue of Helsinki Quarterly sets out to explore the history of Helsinki – urban actors, events, spaces and processes – from a transnational, comparative perspective. By doing so, it also takes the reader to several urban spaces in Helsinki, which even today display a multilayered, transnational past.

The development between 1880 and 1950 changed the use of urban areas in European metropolises. Monumental new city halls were central elements in Scandinavian capital cities.

Ports and industries are at the core of the urban history of Helsinki. Industrialization and the construction of the major port at the end of the nineteenth century ensured Helsinki a solid economy for developing a modern and innovative city.

The Northern Baltic is the best place in the world for marine archaeology for one reason: the wrecks are often in a good shape, because there is no teredo navalis, or shipworm, in this sea area.

This article analyses and explains how the creation and role of public green space in Helsinki has evolved since the 1990s and contrasts this development with that of London.

The establishment of the EAUH in 1989 built on two previous initiatives in urban history.

Town planning was used in Helsinki and similar capitals of emerging independent states to redefine the city and the nation in relation to the rapidly changing world

Some of the most distinguished contemporary Finnish writers, such as Kjell Westö, are urban writers. In the first decades of the twentieth century Toivo Tarvas was one of the very few Helsinki-born writers. The works of this little-known author are especially interesting for urban historians, because they offer observations of a city undergoing profound changes.

Foreign languages have been spoken in the streets of Helsinki throughout the past 450 years. The first migrants came mainly from present-day Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, while the 19th century saw the arrival of a large number of Russian traders and entrepreneurs.

From the end of the nineteenth century to the 1960s, the city officials of Helsinki made a great number of study tours and visits to other European cities to learn about the latest innovations in public infrastructure.

In May 2009, Helsinki opened its first authorised graffiti wall at Suvilahti. The opportunity to use graffiti walls was extended to Kalasatama in summer 2010 and 2011. This article presents the results of an ethnographic survey on the users and usage of the graffiti walls at Suvilahti and Kalasatama.

Helsinki was founded in 1550 by state decree and its most important characteristic has ever since been a close relationship to the state. The foundation of Helsinki was prompted by the commercial interest of the Swedish realm, and the aim was to make the city large and mighty – even though this entailed that burghers from other towns were ordered by the King to move to Helsinki.

In February 2013 Oxford University Press published the Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History, a book which I had worked on and edited over the previous three or so years, aided by Professor Lynn Lees of the University of Philadelphia, a leading expert on modern cities, and Prof. David Mattingley, equally well known for his studies of the ancient city.