Helsinki Guggenheim Museum Competition

Neri&Hu’s proposal challenges extravagant museum architecture by giving the building a rather simple rectangular massing, not unlike the staunch city block of the historic urban fabric. Shrouded in a light, semi-transparent layer, the rectilinear envelope reveals subtle indications of the articulated mass nestled within. The resulting spaces are a pure expression of the architectural carvings, each with a unique curvature and spatial proportion. The visitor engages deeply with the artworks in a focused way, while in their blurry peripheral vision, Helsinki is ever-present as a filtered backdrop of water, sky, park and city. In celebration of the unique environmental conditions of Finland, this is a layered architecture that makes a clear distinction between dark and light, solid and void. As such, it satisfies the dual roles of a museum, as an enduring vault to protect its sacred contents, but also as an open and highly accessible civic building. Elevated on a plinth that levels off with the adjacent park, the building engages its immediate surroundings by defining a new public ground.