History of the Guild

The history of the Guild of Surveying Engineers started on March 23, 1901 when the association was established under the name Maanmittariklubi. However, the early enthusiasm quickly subsided and the association worked varied at the beginning. 1920’s the association was more active and got its first female member, Sirkka Liekka.

April 12, 1935 the association got its first honorary member when “Uncle” (Elias August Piponius) agreed to the task. Same person said these famous words in the Syyssitseillä 1933:

”Yks ryyppy, se ei oo mikkään ryyppy; kaks ryyppyvä, se oj jo puol ryyppyvä ja kaks puolryyppyvä se on vasta koko ryyppy. Vallesmannin ryyppy on kaks koko ryyppyvä ja kaks vallesmannin ryyppyvä, se on mittarin ryyppy”.

“One shot, is not a shot; two shots is half a shot and two half a shot is a whole shot. The shot of Lensmann is two whole shots and two shots of Lensmann is the shot of mittari (member of the Guild of Surveying Engineers)”

1st of January 1944 the association changed its name to Maanmittarikilta.

In the 60’s there were lot of changes in the guild. In 1960 the guild had a design competition for the design of the logo. The winner was architecture student Kalle-Heikki Narinen and the name of the new logo “three hard” (kolme kovaa). 1966, the first annual ball of the guild was held in Dipoli and 1967 was the first publication of the guild’s magazine named “Maanmittarikilta”. A year later the name was changed to Geometres, as it is still known.

In the 60’s the guild also get to move from Helsinki to Otaniemi with the university. The first guild room opened 1967 in the room M124. Guild also decided to cooperate with other guilds and the founded MAIK with the Guild of Architecture and the Guild of Civil Engineering in 1968.

The first overalls of the guild came 1983. The colour of the overalls were dark green, in the same style as in Sweden. The colour was changed in the following year to black as it is still today, because no other guild had that colour in use. Unfortunately the Tietokilta had same logic and now both guilds have the same colour in their overalls.

The songbook of the guild was published 1995 and the second edition was published over 10 years later, 2006.

In the 2010’s the establishment of Aalto University affected to the guild. Guild had to move from the guild room, because of the renovation of the former main building. The guild moved to Gentti (cur. Technopolis Innopoli 3D) next to the Ring Road I.

The reform of the degree programs, that took place 2013, also changed the guild, because the old programs “kiinteistötalosu” and “geomatiikka” ended and the new program, built environment (rakennettu ympäristö) replaced these programs. The colour of the left sleeve of the overalls was changed from green or lilac to pink.

2017 the guild got new and hopefully last guild room from Konetalo 1 (Otakaari 4)