Voldemar Lender was an Estonian engineer who was the mayor of Tallinn from 1906 to 1913, notably being the first ethnic Estonian to become the mayor of Tallinn.
Biography
Lender was born to a family who owned a construction company. He first studied at Tallinn's Alexander Gymnasium, later attending the Saint Petersburg State University's Department of Physics and Mathematics from 1896 to 1897, then later attending the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology from 1897 to 1902. After graduating from the latter, he worked as an engineer at the Dvigatel wagon factory in Tallinn until 1906, a lucrative position for the time. In 1904, Lender was elected as Tallinn's city councilor. From 1906 to 1913, he was the mayor of Tallinn while also working at the city's construction department. He primarily tackled issues concerning the economic and communal affairs of the increasingly urbanized population of the city. He was the first ethnic Estonian mayor of Tallinn, as a result of a coalition between Estonian and Russian politicians attempting to break the power that Baltic Germans had on politics in the Baltic states, and in Tallinn in particular, for centuries. This wave of Estonian and Russian politicians also included Konstantin Päts, the futurePresident of Estonia, Jaan Teemant, the first mayor of Tallinn of Russian descent Erast Hiatsintov, and Otto Strandman, the future Prime Minister of Estonia. From 1903 to 1914, he had a building and engineering office where Anton Uesson, began his career as a civil engineer. Notable projects done by Uesson at Lender's company include the limestone historicism-inspired chapel at Rahumäe cemetery. Lender's office continued to function under his administration during his mayoralty. Lender was on the supervisory board of Harju Bank from 1919 to 1925. Lender's work primarily consisted of one-and two-story wooden tenement houses with symmetrical facades, called Lender houses. Despite not being the first designer nor the most productive designer of the design that bears his name, he formalized and carried out the supervision of their construction. The Lender-style houses were popular from the late 19th century to the early 20th century in the suburbs of Tallinn, known for their cheap construction costs and popularity among those who moved to Tallinn, at a time where Tallinn was experiencing large rates of urbanization. In the modern day, the houses that are still left are considered environmentally valuable housing estates, along with the areas that they are in being considered areas of cultural interest. Lender was also the chairman for the first meeting of the Estonian National Education Society, with the goal of promoting Estonian-language public education at a time when Estonia was under the rule of the Russian Empire. Lender's wife, , was a teacher who founded the first Estonian-speaking girls' school in Estonia. They had four children: daughters Ilka and Juta, teachers, , a diplomat, and , a doctor and military captain. Lender received the second class order of the Order of the Cross of the Eagle on 14 January 1935. Ending in August of 2017, a competition to design a monument memorializing Voldemar and Elfriede Lender was held. The monument will be built near the Elfriede Lenderi Eragümnaasium, which Elfriede founded, in Torupilli district of Tallinn to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Estonia in 2018.
