Vantaa’s 50th anniversary is celebrated in 2024 with the theme Kotona Vantaalla (“At Home in Vantaa”)
Vantaa has its 50th anniversary as a city in 2024. The jubilee year celebrations will take multiple forms, starting from New Year’s reception at the turn of 2023-2024.
Our wish is that all Vantaa residents celebrate Vantaa's 50th anniversary. We will invite residents, communities, educational institutions, and businesses to participate in implementing the jubilee year program. We will inform in more detail about the ways of participating in the course of this year.
Jubilee year’s theme: At Home in Vantaa
The jubilee year’s theme and goals are based on a multilingual resident survey. In summer 2022, we posed the following questions to residents: What is your 50-year-old Vantaa like now and in the future? Vantaa residents were interested in the survey, and we picked up one statement, written in English, from the responses: In Vantaa, you feel that you have found your place in the world. “This finely expressed the idea that everybody should feel about their hometown. This became the theme “At Home in Vantaa,” says Ulla Viskari-Perttu, jubilee year coordinator.
Vantaa’s history as a city published as a book
The jubilee year has its apex in the Vantaa50 project, carried out by the City of Vantaa's history editorial board. The project collects residents’ oral history and arranges history-themed events. An exhibition related to the project will be launched at the city museum, and a jubilee book on Vantaa's 50-year-old urban history will be published. The book focuses on the special features of Vantaa’s growth and development from the perspectives of municipal politics, urban planning, and Vantaa residents’ everyday lives. The book will be sold online on the city museum’s online store, and you can also borrow it at Vantaa libraries.
Professor Laura Kolbe, professor of European history at the University of Helsinki, acts as the chair of the Vantaa50 editorial board. Other members of the board consist of Marjo Poutanen, manager of the city museum; Andreas Koivisto, archaeologist of the city museum; Jukka Hako, Master of Arts; and Tarja Laine, city planning director.
Local Heritage Days in Vantaa in 2024
One of the main events of the jubilee year is the National Local Heritage Days taking place at the turn of August - September. Local Heritage Days is the Finnish Local Heritage Federation's annual main event that has been arranged since 1949 in different parts of Finland. Vantaa arranges its very first Local Heritage Days on August 30 - September 1, 2024. In addition to Vantaa-based program, the Local Heritage Days brings forth other topical themes related to local heritage work.
The Vantaa Local Heritage Days event wants to emphasize modern urban living, involvement, and multiculturalism, in addition to cultural heritage. The event also translates into the main event of the Finnish Local Heritage Federation's own 75th jubilee year. “We wish to introduce new ways of local heritage work and bolster integration of new residents with this event. It is very opportune that the event can simultaneously celebrate the jubilee years of both Vantaa and the Finnish Local Heritage Federation, adds Sampo Suihko, chair of the board of the Finnish Local Heritage Federation.
Thousands of locals and hundreds of culture representatives and enthusiast from all over Finland will participate in the Local Heritage Days. Municipalities, regional councils, associations, regional organizations, and national organizations will send representatives to the event. Many, however, will join the event without representative duties, because it is an excellent way to familiarize oneself with genuine local cultural heritage. Moreover, the event is very strongly also an event for the locals, which is seen in the Local Heritage Days’ versatile program.
The City of Vantaa's cultural director Annukka Larkio wishes the visitors to the Local Heritage Days warmly welcome to Vantaa.
“The 50-year-old City of Vantaa is a ruggedly beautiful, historical city whose regional history dates all the way back to the Stone Age. Culture, public art, history, and cultural events are extremely visible, especially in the summer, in various parts of the city. Vantaa jubilee year’s theme: At Home in Vantaa brings together all people, regardless of from where they have moved here or whether they were born here.”
