The oldest signs of human activity in the Otaniemi area can be found in front of the courtyard of what is now Jämeräntaival 1 (the so-called summer hotel): a pile of rocks dating from the Bronze Age (also called "the grave of the primordial teekkari"), about 3000 years old.

Ancient fishermen were active in the area because the main course of the Vantaa river used to flow into the Iso Huopalahti bay at the bottom of Laajalahti at the time.

The latter might well be the correct etymology, because in late medieval sources the name Otaniemi also appears as Outnäs, Owttenes or Outenesby (later Otnäs).

Because of the diphthong "ou" which is rarely used in Swedish, it can be deduced that there have been southern Sámi people or Tavastians in the ara in ancient times.

During the Russo-Swedish War, on the icy cold winter of 1577 the Tatars attacked the coast of Espoo over the Gulf of Finland and burned the entire village of Otaniemi to the ground.

[2] The mayor of Helsinki Gabriel Tavast bought Otaniemi in 1653 and almost ten years later in 1662 it was transferred to the state as a manor of the crown.

After the Great Wrath, the lands of Otaniemi were bought by colonel Henrik Wright who had served in the army of King Charles XII of Sweden.

This took place in 1734, and thus two new crofts were formed, Björnholm (Karhusaari) at the eastern shore of the Otsolahti bay and Lakör at the point of the Otaniemi peninsula.

When the immense construction work of Sveaborg started, the farmstead of Otaniemi was transferred to the ownership of Karl von Numers in 1746.

[2] The construction workers and garrison men of Sveaborg required large amounts of accommodation space, and new residential buildings were built also in the Otaniemi area.

One of these so-called military crofts later developed into the Hagalund manor, which still remains at its place, near the Otaniemi water tower.

[2] After the death of Pavel Sinebrychoff in 1883 the entire area was transferred to his older son Nikolai, who travelled abroad three years later to take care of his health.

The smaller part (consisting of the current university campus and the Teekkarikylä student residence) was given to director Carl af Forselles, the husband of Fanny's niece, and the larger part, including the Hagalund manor, was given to Fanny's nephew, doctor and tennis player Arne Grahn, also known as the "father" of the district of Westend.

[2] In 1927 the Af Forselles family sold Otaniemi to three private persons, who founded the company Ab Otnäs Gård in the area.

In 1949 the state of Finland bought an area of about 107 hectares north of Lehtisaarentie from the company, on the initiative of the Helsinki University of Technology.

Construction materials included bricks that had been taken from the ruins of the embassy of the Soviet Union, which had been destroyed in the bombing of Helsinki during World War II.

[4] Construction of Teekkarikylä and the prominent actions of the teekkari students in 1956 sped up the university's move to Otaniemi from its old, cramped premises in the Helsinki city centre.

Construction of the main building of the university started in 1961, when the old manor located at the same time, dating from the late 18th or early 19th century, was dismantled.

[8] The area is architecturally unique, boasting buildings designed by leading Finnish architects including Alvar Aalto, Heikki and Kaija Siren, and Reima and Raili Pietilä.

Helsinki University of Technology's 10 national centers of excellence create most of Finland's hi-tech patents within this small area.