623 Entries Submitted for New Museum of Architecture and Design in Helsinki

The competition for Finland’s New Museum of Architecture and Design in Helsinki was launched in April of this year, about seven-and-a-half years after the Helsinki City Council voted not to fund the construction of the Guggenheim Helsinki for the same or adjacent site in the city's South Harbour. Lessons were learned in the ensuing years, namely to make a museum in such a prominent location public and to run the competition through public entities. As such, the Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design was established in April 2022, and the Helsinki- and Finland-owned Real Estate Company ADM was formed later the same year. Together they received funding for the competition from the Helsinki City Council in early 2024, launched the competition in April, and now, with the international jury*, have the task of winnowing down the 623 anonymous entries to three to five finalists by the end of the year. Those 3–5 architect-led teams will then be invited to the second stage of the competition, which will take place between February and May 2025, with the winner revealed in September 2025, a year from now.

What exactly is the planned Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design? Per today's announcement of the 623 entries, the new museum “will combine the Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum Helsinki,” two existing institutions whose collections “contain over 900,000 artifacts, including objects, correspondence, models and photographs documenting the work of important practitioners such as Aino and Alvar Aalto, Eero Aarnio, Maija Isola, Eliel and Eero Saarinen, Paavo Tynell, and design brands such as Marimekko, Nokia and Fiskars.” In terms of mission, the new museum will be “democratizing the tools of design” and “drawing on the history and present of Finnish and Nordic architecture and design to guide a program of public activities that will look at how design thinking and skills are relevant to the challenges we face as individuals and societies in a rapidly changing world.” It is scheduled to open in 2030.

The form the museum will take is anyone's guess. A quick browse through even a few of the 623 entries displayed on the competition website reveal the pluralism of contemporary architecture in the 21st century. There are stacked boxes, angular forms, circular volumes, low buildings, towers, undulating surfaces, colorful facades, terraces, planted rooftops — just about every approach to architectural form-making and expression is on display. This diversity is reiterated by the “pseudonyms” attached to each anonymous entry, some of which are Finnish, some of which are gibberish, and some of which articulate the formal aspects of their designs: Intersection, Museum Hill, Passage, Assemblage, Urban Poche, The Shed, etc. Aiding comparisons are the fact that nearly all of the 623 entries include the same aerial view as the lead image and that visitors to the website can easily browse the entries (by number, by pseudonym, or randomly) with this first image (or any one or all of the five images for each design) large on the screen. The website, which uses Competition Cloud, is very user-friendly and should be helpful to the jury as they try to find 3–5 finalists from a grab bag of 623 entries.

• Mikko Aho (Chair), Architect SAFA; Vice Chair, Vice-Chair of Real Estate Company ADM
• Juha Lemström (Vice Chair), Architect SAFA; Chair, Real Estate Company ADM
• Gus Casely-Hayford, Director, V&A East
• Beatrice Galilee, Architect; Executive Director, The World Around
• Kaarina Gould, CEO, Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design
• Salla Hoppu, Architect SAFA; Leading Architect, City of Helsinki
• Riitta Kaivosoja, Director General, Ministry of Education and Culture, Department for Art and Cultural Policy
• Beate Hølmebakk, Architect, Professor, Partner, Manthey Kula Architects
• Matti Kuittinen, Architect, Associate Professor, Aalto University
• Miklu Silvanto, Chief Design Officer, ŌURA; Board Member, AD Museum
• Anni Sinnemäki, Deputy Mayor for Urban Environment, City of Helsinki
• Sari Nieminen, Architect SAFA, Architectural Office Sari Nieminen
• Hannu Tikka, Architect SAFA, Professor, APRT Architects