Guggenheim Helsinki

Contemporary architecture has been strongly influenced by the concept of landscape in recent times. A new mindset evolves that changes the core of the architectural discipline: the organization and composition of architectural space as a landscape.

 

The new Guggenheim is designed like a soft area of transition between the park and the sea symbolized by a twice wave surrounding three massifs concretes cubes. The building is regular in plan, but appears to be more organic in shape because of the way that its roof and floor undulate gently, always in parallel. With few visible supports, the building touches the ground lightly, leaving an expanse of open space beneath which draws people from all sides towards the three central entrances. Each entrance has two different accesses: one to the cubic exhibition gallery and another to the organic "cultural mall".

 

 

The aim of these two conflicting shapes is to formally separate the exhibitions spaces from a landscaping "cultural mall"  open to the public every day.  Inside, the hills, valleys and plateaus formed by the undulation often make the edges of the building invisible, though there are no visual barriers between one area and the next. Instead of steps and staircases, there are gentle slopes and terraces. Clearly, one area of activity gives way to another.

Visitors stroll up the gentle curves and move between the three exhibition volumes in a continuous cultural path which brings them through restaurants, conference hall and book-shops.  As well as providing social areas and an auditorium, the building lends itself to the establishment of quiet zones and silent zones, acoustically separated areas created through changes in height. The slopes, valleys and plateaus within the building, as well as the shapes made by the three exhibition volumes, all contribute to these barrier-free delineations of space. In addition, clusters of glazed or walled ‘bubbles’ make physical enclosures for management and collection storage as well as offices for small groups to meet or work together in.

 

The roof, a huge beam frame made of laminated wood, follows the landscape of the floor (the basement).  Its outside surface is made of hundreds of wooden cubes which form the impressive roof garden of the Guggenheim: a new exterior space in which visitors can sit to have a coffee or rest over the green areas under the sky.

 

This new public open space is directly connected to the Tähtitorninvuoren Park by a foot bridge.
The main structural materials are concrete, glass and wood: the floor and the Exhibition Volumes are a concrete structure, the roof wood and the façades of the wave are made of high quality double-glazed windows; the floor and roof run parallel to each other, while the exhibition volumes are located in three different positions and directions; each volume hosts in its middle the exhibition lobby: an open rift enlighten by natural light which links the different exhibition galleries.

The new Guggenheim aim is to design a space within a landscape which gives over the entire roof as a park back to the public.