Guggenheim Museum Helsinki

In June 2014, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation announced an anonymous public international competition for the design of a new Guggenheim museum in Helsinki. The competition attracted 1,715 proposals from 77 countries. Only six finalists advanced to the next round, where they further developed their designs. The finalists included HaasCookZemmrich Studio2050, SMAR Architecture Studio, Fake Industries Architectural Agonism, Asif Khan, AGPS Architecture, and Moreau Kusunoki Architectes, who ultimately won the competition.

Our studio also participated in this competition, albeit unsuccessfully in terms of awards, but we consider this project to be very important for our studio. We confirmed our own handwriting in designing an art house in a very specific and strong context, contemplating a modern and expressionistically articulated cultural building - a gallery.

Context

The southern harbor of Finland's capital, Helsinki, is a place of duality and the energy of movement. The harbor also dramatically alters its appearance during the seasons. Over 300 islands and islets surround the city, and the lakes and seas around Helsinki regularly freeze in winter. Helsinki derives its identity from this network of islands, islets, and bays, enormous ships and boats in the harbors, and the calm European urbanism. In this visual landscape, we can easily find a hierarchy of significant places - church towers, town halls, and viewpoints on hills - all cultural and spiritual reference points of Finland's capital. There is a certain duality of perception, from the city to its harbor, and conversely from the harbor to the city.

Synthesis

Our task is to place a significant object here, in the southern harbor of Helsinki … "the tower of art"… "the lighthouse", a cultural reference, transformed forms and patterns from its phenomenology and mystery. We are placing a tower that resonates with its surroundings, asserting its position and hierarchy, while at the same time reflecting Helsinki's own identity. The new Guggenheim museum embodies art and the city, in the form of a "vertical viewpoint".

The vertical viewpoint essentially consists of just three public spaces and three volumetric and programmatic parts. The public spaces are: the square in front of the tower, the promenade along the museum, and the courtyard of the gallery, a kind of public internal "patio", inviting visitors into the museum's spaces indirectly… a passive invitation to the experience of art.

The visual and architectural identity of the new museum in Helsinki has evolved from the phenomenology of the place and the energies of movement, which we perceive as an important aspect of the harbor. It is both a "lighthouse... container... maritime vessel... mysterious art object". It is an "organism" with a movable spine, functional "appendages", and "skin" that changes according to the needs of illumination, shading, or any gradation within the organism. Wood is used in the gallery interiors as a neutral, tactile material, referencing traditional building materials.

Surroundings and Landmarks

In the vicinity of the southern harbor of Helsinki, there is a comprehensible urban hierarchy among the objects in the background, which are holders of street lines and monuments or "exceptional" objects. We design the new Guggenheim museum in accordance and in harmony with these exceptional buildings that form the cultural, philosophical, and spiritual reference points of the capital.

Imagery Relationships and Linguistic Form

The identity of each newly created, culturally significant object in the urban context should, in our opinion, have readable connections and a form embedded in its environment.

Energy of Movement and Trajectories

The energy and magic of the harbor lie largely in its cycles of movement and the kinetic energy of people, ships, boats, and cars - they are the life and essence of the harbor. We map these trajectories of movement and transform them into a kinetic object for art.

Duality and Phenomenology of the Place

The seasonal transformation of the water surface into an ice surface is a fascinating natural phenomenon occurring around the islands and bays of Finland. This surface morphology goes through phases of certainty and uncertainty, stability and instability, darkness and light, and ultimately warmth and cold.