The Strange Case of Helsinki’s Museum of Architecture and Design

Claudio Zanirato, architect, has been a tenured University Researcher in Architectural and Urban Composition at the School of Architecture of Florence since 2003; since 1998 he has been a Professor of Architectural Design and Interior Architecture in various degree courses at the School of Architecture of Florence.

The Strange Case of Helsinki’s Museum of Architecture and Design

Something strange is happening in Helsinki; in the same place, with the same forms, and the same intents, the vestiges of a never-built museum are emerging.

1_Introduction
The competition for the design of the South Harbor waterfront of Helsinki took place in 2012, attracting 201 proposals from around the world. Its main scope was the redevelopment of the old harbor of Helsinki, one of the city’s most ambitious projects for the new millennium, which involved rethinking an iconic and strategic area, a bay sited between the historic center and the sea. The main objective was to create a new neighborhood that combined culture, nature, and modern infrastructure while respecting the historical character of the harbor. The jury awarded four equal prizes, emphasizing that no proposal had achieved all the competition’s objectives distinctly better than the others. These proposals and other notable mentions offered a variety of innovative ideas for the redevelopment of the harbor, contributing to shaping the future of this strategic area of the city

Fig.1_ “Tori”, by APRT Oy with Aaro Artto in collaboration with Maria Laisi and Jussi Vakkilainen, one of the four awarded entries

2_The Origin
The international competition for the Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki launched in 2014 attracted extraordinary attention at a global level. It was an initiative promoted by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to build a new museum in the southern harbor area of Helsinki that gathered over 1,700 proposals from 77 countries, becoming one of the largest architecture competitions ever organized.
“Art in the City” by Parisian firm Moreau Kusunoki Architectes, the winning proposal announced in June 2015, was characterized by a series of interconnected black wood-and-glass pavilions, arranged along the waterfront and dominated by a “lighthouse” tower as a focal point visible from the city.
Despite the competition’s success, the project was never realized due to the opposition of many Finnish citizens and political groups arguing that public resources could have been better used for existing cultural purposes in the country. The estimated construction cost of the museum was about 130 million euros, with a significant portion to be provided by the Finnish government and the city of Helsinki. Some had also criticized the project as a venture perceived more as commercial than cultural, imposed from the outside, in contrast to Finnish pride in its architectural and artistic traditions. The city council rejected the funding proposal in 2016, a move that resulted in the Guggenheim Foundation announcing the abandonment of the plan to build the museum. Even though the museum was not realized the competition left a significant legacy in terms of new ideas and discussions on architecture and urban planning in the Finnish capital..

Fig.2_The winning proposal of the competition to design the Guggenheim Helsinki 

3_Relaunch
Launched in 2019, the City of Helsinki-sponsored “Makasiiniranta: Ideas Competition” asked world-renowned architects and urban planners to propose innovative and sustainable solutions to transform the southern area of the Old Harbour, which was narrower than in the first competition, into a new focal point of the city including iconic spaces such as a covered market and various docks, and was also very close to the site originally envisioned for the Guggenheim Museum.
This competition was one of the most significant initiatives to redefine the relationship between Helsinki’s Old Town and the sea. It involved world-renowned firms; eleven groups were selected to submit their proposals in the first phase, from which nine entries were received and made public for consultation. Subsequently, the jury selected four proposals for the second phase of the competition. In 2022, the winning project, entitled “Saaret” and designed by Helsinki-based White Arkitekter, was unveiled. The proposal also reserved a lot, close to the covered market and the city center, for the nascent National Museum of Architecture and Design, created by merging two existing institutions in the capital.
The project is currently in the detailed design stage with works scheduled to begin within a few years, and is aimed to represent a model for future urban regeneration projects

Fig.3_An image of the winning entry, “Saaret”, with a preliminary idea for an elliptic-shaped National Museum of Architecture and Design

4_Return
The international architectural competition for the New Museum of Architecture and Design in Helsinki was launched in 2024 “to create a cultural institution of global significance, destined to become a landmark for architecture, design, arts, and culture”. The area of the new museum is exactly the same as that of the never-built Guggenheim Helsinki. The intervention is promoted by the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design, together with the Real Estate Company ADM, which will manage the “Saaret” real estate development, in cooperation with the City of Helsinki and the Finnish Association of Architects SAFA (which collectively nominated almost half of the 13 jurors). The estimated cost of the intervention is about 100 million euros.
The deadline for the first stage was August 29, 2024, when a total of 624 proposals were received. The five projects selected for the second phase – Tyrsky; Kumma; Moby; Tau; and City, Sky, and Sea -, are still strictly anonymous; they will be further developed in the second stage and submitted by May 2025. The winner will be announced in September 2025 (https://www.admuseo.fi/competition).
The jury’s decision raised perplexities and questions, not only among the participants. While there is a general agreement that the brief was well written and the competition has been managed very professionally, the jury seems to not have taken into account all those “binding” requirements intended to stimulate designers to propose exemplary and iconic solutions for the city.
Out of all of the selected entries, “Tyrsky” particularly caused a stir, since it seems to be almost a replica of the winning design of the first Guggenheim Helsinki competition, updated with a “touch” of greenwashing: It is not yet known whether it is plagiarism (!?) or a re-proposal by the same authors, but the committee seems to have liked it a lot, so much so that also the proposal “City, Sky and Sea” looks pretty similar to that old winning entry as well.

Fig.4_A view of the “Tyrsky” entry, one of the five finalists

So it seems that a ghost is wandering around the old port of Helsinki, a witness of various “mistreated” architectural ideas for the area. Maybe he will finally find peace this time or continue to wander in search of justice, in this place or another.