HELSINKI GUGGENHEIM DESIGN WINNER
01 Jul 2015
French firm Moreau Kusunoki Architectes has been named as the winner of the Guggenheim Helsinki design competition.
An international competition to design a new Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki has attracted more than 1700 entries, more than any competition of its kind. Regarded as one of the most important of recent years, the competition was organised by the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation.
The winning design by Moreau Kusunoki Architectes was selected from a shortlist of six. The Paris based design studio won out over competitors from around the world, including two Australian entrants. Their design for the museum comprises a cluster of darkly clad pavilions with concave roofs that will be linked by a series of garden patios. A lookout tower with a glazed top will rise from one side of the site to provide views over the city's waterfront. Lights within the tower will illuminate the tip of the structure at night like a lighthouse.
“Architecture has to give some emotion, it has to bring poetry into society," said architect Moreau. "We are trying to formalise all the needs of the society."
The site proposed for the museum's Helsinki outpost is in the city's South Harbour area, close to the city centre. The building is expected to cost €130 million ($189 million) to construct, and will have a floor area of around 12,100 square metres, with 4,000 square metres of exhibition space.
Of this award winning design, the jury said, “The design [is] deeply respectful of the site and setting, creating a fragmented, non-hierarchical, horizontal campus of linked pavilions where art and society could meet and inter-mingle.”
