Guggenheim Helsinki
Competition Proposal
Helsinki, Finland, 2014
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cb0fb87a2c83c350c63ec4d62b1c641cb2e91824b89db3b693e3126d9790b095/1.jpg)
A museum that is simultaneously austere and exuberant, collective and individualistic, dark and light, traditional and progressive, and of the forest and the city.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/542f18a7b74026d8432961f11b7df9ff0af5398ee771c835da97e357b5064bcd/SITE-PLAN.png)
Four flexible gallery macro-spaces float autonomously above a plaza for education, cultural exchange, dining, and retail, accessible from the main plaza, the water, the road, and the port, open to the public.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/46a3cf228fb14d6ec1a26d0e9c96ff991cbbf002ebb267fb6351935f4add4c4e/AXON.png)
Five studios form a centerpiece of this space, where artists-in-residence can be inspired by the museum collection and invigorated by the public through the revelation of their creative process.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7f8e39903e83ad50e652770a03ba1b87f7b0a95f2dc04c045cec3438a36088c2/MASSING-DEVELOPMENT.png)
The galleries are deliberately elevated above and directed inward from this active urban environment, and link the
viewer to Helsinki’s landscape through large channel glass portholes.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4ec4ab69e9fe7307dba9a52e262ed0ae2c9142fa9cc36b8bf239a433ccfa5cf0/PLANS.png)
This allows one to concurrently interpret works of art and comprehend the context in which they were created.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/516266551e3874e73b39bf763ac84a3f0727b83fe3f0023695606b89cd7b03d1/SECTIONS.png)
The massing of these volumes evokes a synthesis of vernacular and contemporary morphology through the transformation of gabled profiles into sinuous filleted volumes.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a1182e54401fe9f094432e11bd7ce0f9533dbb1aab17fa2a5bfb8273396cc84/3.jpg)