Uus-Pärnu: A Procedural Reconstruction

How to reconstruct the 16th-century city space, if everything that’s left is a ground map and book loads of medieval chitchat?

The reconstruction of Uus-Pärnu was based on research by historian Inna Põltsam-Jürjo, existing buildings from the area, and a 16th-century cadastral map. Historians used references from other Hanseatic towns to infer the spatial logic of the city. The cadastral data made it possible to identify which plots belonged to merchants and which to craftsmen.

They described what kinds of buildings would have stood on each type of property, how large they might have been compared to other towns of the same period, and how they related to the surrounding street network.

Since a full reconstruction of the original city was not possible, we modeled the known buildings and placed them in their corresponding locations. The remaining cityscape was generated using a rule-based approach — defining the street structure, plot boundaries, and the function of each plot according to its historical inhabitants.

Instead of manually modeling each building, we used procedural generation tools to create a hundred possible versions of the city’s layout. Historians were then invited to select the one that appeared most plausible. Procedural generation allowed us to define a coherent set of rules and parameters governing how urban elements—such as streets, plots, buildings, and facades—were generated, resulting in a historically grounded yet flexible reconstruction process.

The resulting city model became the foundation for the exhibition, where visitors can explore stories connected to each plot. Creating a spatial reconstruction was essential for conveying the scale of the 16th-century city and helping visitors relate to it in a tangible way.

The fire of 1533

In 1533, on a Wednesday after Exaudi (the Feast of the Ascension, 28 May), and on several other occasions in that summer, our town was mercilessly set on fire by the barber’s apprentice and a female servant, who was purchased by a priest, Johann Droste, a bastard child from the Drostes, who were from Westphalia, he was a cleric in New Pärnu, let the fire spread and burned down our town – the Town Hall and the guild hall, from Karja Gate to the citadel. 34 people lost their lives – Germans and non-Germans. It was a horrible conflagration, the tower (where praise be to God a new tower has been built) held gunpowder; that tower exploded, so it is not known what became of it.

The three murderous arsonists, all three of them, who had been purchased by that time, were found guilty by the court and burned on three stakes.