Viru roundabout is Tallinn's central point — the reference point from which distances to other Estonian towns and destinations abroad are measured, and the hinge between the medieval Old Town, the Rotermann quarter and the modern city centre. At Viru väljak 2, right on this roundabout, stands a two-storey limestone building that once housed the Tallinn Alexander Gymnasium (1872–1917) and, later, a faculty of Tallinn Pedagogical University. Its facades toward Mere puiestee and Viru väljak, and in part toward the post office side, are protected as a cultural monument, and it is this wall — not any new construction — that gives the site its heritage status. The city's detailed plan for the plot required these historic facades to be preserved and built into whatever replaced the building behind them. KOKO architects, led by Raivo Kotov with interior architecture by Liis Lindvere, designed the new office building — Metro Plaza, completed in 2009 for developer Focus Kinnisvara — to grow up directly behind the retained limestone wall: a glass-clad volume with rounded corners and an irregular rhythm of window divisions, set back just far enough to leave a covered pedestrian route running along the inside of the old facade, sheltered from weather and traffic alike.
2009 Tallinn City Government / Prize for architectural and design lighting in the city
Functionally, the building layers uses from the ground up. The ground and second floors hold retail space and the office lobby, reached from Viru väljak, while deliveries and waste handling are routed to the quieter side of the building. Floors three to six hold office space, and two levels of underground parking — 78 spaces in total — sit beneath it all. A coloured lighting installation built into the glass facade lights up the building after dark and allows dedicated light displays during the darker months, work recognised in 2009 with the City of Tallinn's award for architectural and design lighting. Its position could hardly be more central. Viru väljak sits at the meeting point of Pärnu maantee and Narva maantee — the corridor now envisioned as Tallinn's "peatänav," the city's planned main pedestrian street running from Vabaduse väljak through Viru väljak to the river. In that plan, the square itself is reshaped into a human-scaled public plaza, and the sheltered walkway behind Metro Plaza's old facade is well placed to become part of a continuous, larger pedestrian network stitching the roundabout to the streets and public spaces around it.