Editing Turku (section)

===After independence===
[[File:Aurakatu 1910's.jpg|thumb|Aurakatu area in the 1910s]]
In 1918, a new university, the [[Åbo Akademi]] – the only [[Swedish-language]] university in Finland – was founded in Turku.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About Åbo Akademi University |url=https://www.abo.fi/en/about-abo-akademi-university/ |access-date=22 August 2020 |website=Åbo Akademi University |language=en-US |archive-date=6 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190506140846/https://www.abo.fi/en/about-abo-akademi-university/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Two years later, the [[Finnish-language]] [[University of Turku]] was founded alongside it. These two universities are the second and third to be founded in Finland, both by private donations.

In the 20th century, Turku was called "Finland's gateway to the West" by historians such as {{ill|Jarmo Virmavirta|fi}}.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Antikainen |editor-first1=Anne |editor-last2=Tarja |editor-first2=Pyöriä |title=Kaupunkiseutujen kasvun aika |year=2004 |chapter=Turku – Suomen portti länteen |publisher=Sisäministeriö |isbn=951-734-671-9 |language=fi }}</ref> The city enjoyed good connections with other Western European countries and cities, especially since the 1940s with [[Stockholm]] across the [[Gulf of Bothnia]]. In the 1960s, Turku became the first Western city to sign a [[town twinning|twinning]] agreement with [[Leningrad]] in the [[Soviet Union]], leading to greater inter-cultural exchange and providing a new meaning to the city's 'gateway' function. After the [[fall of communism]] in Russia, many prominent Soviets came to Turku to study Western business practices, among them [[Vladimir Putin]], then Leningrad's deputy mayor.<ref>{{cite web |title=Putin on vanha Turun-kävijä |url=https://www.ts.fi/uutiset/502110 |website=TS.fi |date=25 June 2013 |publisher=Turun Sanomat |access-date=12 April 2022 |language=fi |archive-date=12 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220412085832/https://www.ts.fi/uutiset/502110 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Market place turku.jpg|thumb|The [[Market Square, Turku|Market Square]] in 1965]]
As for architecture in the city, both the body of architectural styles as well as the prevalent way of living have experienced significant changes in the 20th century. While having survived relatively intact throughout the years of war 1939–1945{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}, the city faced increasing changes in the 1950s and 1960s due to rising demands for apartments, the eagerness to rebuild, and most of all the new development of infrastructure (especially increased automobile traffic). The wooden one- to two-story houses that were the dominant mode of building in the city were mostly demolished in the 1950s and 1960s to both enable more efficient building and to ease vehicle traffic. This resulted in the destruction of buildings that were, in later decades, seen as beautiful and worth saving. Some individual buildings remain controversial to this day when it comes to their demolition in the decades after the war. For example, the building of {{ill|Hotel Phoenix|fi|Hotelli Phoenix}} that stood on corner of the [[Market Square, Turku|Market Square]] was torn down to make way for a large, multistory apartment building in 1959. The building was significant both for its location and history: having stood on one of the most valuable lots in the city center since 1878, the building had, for example, served as the first main building of the University of Turku. Other buildings whose demolition was seen as scandalous, either already at the time of action or proved to be so in later years, include {{ill|The Nobel House|fi|Nobelin talo}} (subject of the very first photograph ever taken in Finland) and the building of [[Hamburger Börs (hotel)|Old Hotel Börs]] which was built in jugendstil in 1909 by {{ill|Frithiof Strandell|fi}}.