The Albertinkatu electrical laboratory

The first of the university's technical laboratories to be completed was the electrical laboratory on Albertinkatu, designed by Professor Onni Tarjanne. Construction began in 1924. The laboratory answered a societal need: At the time, the Imatra power plant was under construction, preceding the construction of an actual electrical grid for Southern Finland. The construction of the power plant and the grid required extensive technical experiments and series of tests, which, after the autumn of 1926, could be carried out in a domestic laboratory.

The electrical laboratory was equipped by Siemens & Halske of Berlin. The first floor of the building held a high-voltage laboratory, radio engineering laboratories and facilities for the electrotechnical laboratories of the materials testing institute. On the second floor were electrotechnical workshops, offices and a small lecture hall. Large lecture halls and collections facilities occupied the third floor. The top floor included a reference library, a technical drawing room and a lighting technology workshop. The basement floor of the building consisted mainly of workshop space.

Through the 1930s, the modern electrical laboratory trained international-level scientists and engineers whose impact on the domestic electronics industry was evident well into the 1960s.