The new Guggenheim museum will be the new city landmark and the main socialization point in Helsinki. It has conceived according to a clear geometric figure (150x50meters) that remember to the closed urban block of Helsinki. It appears as a huge stone block, crossed by specific visual axes that look at the city and vice versa. These volume subtractions make the museum very permeable and as a big sculpture.
The external area of the Guggenheim has composed by:
- The Square for exhibit big artworks is the main access to the museum and has the function of transforming the space in front of the Hotel Palace in a square on the sea.
- From the Square a large staircase leads to a belvedere square (10meters high from the sea level), opened on the sea and on the city. It is a place for socialization (kiosk, theatre), for exhibitions and events. Thanks to the new pedestrian bridge, that connects it at the museums on the hill, it becomes the peculiar point of this pedestrian path.
- The sculpture garden encloses the museum in all its length toward the city. It is designed to host big artistic installations and year-long exhibitions of architectural interventions.
The urban and monumental shell of the museum is in contrast with the surprising and comfortable space of its interior. The ground floor is a wide atrium (150meters long), totally covered with local wooden planks. It is flooded of light thanks to the skylights. The space compressed in height (5meters) grows up until 30meters, with a chimney shape, around the five nucleuses that contain all the main museum functions (exhibition galleries, offices, auditorium, and artwork storages). Inside these chimneys there are wide staircases that lead to the upper exhibition galleries.
In the central area of the building, the atrium reaches its maximum dimension under the big skylight (that can be obscured). Here a staircase and lift lead to the upper belvedere square. It is perfect for hosting big artworks. As a public space of the city, it is a place for socialization thanks to the café, restaurant and bookshop. The internal space compresses and expands itself in visual glimpses towards the sky, the city and the sea. The nine exhibition galleries (with flooring and walls in white color to highlight the artworks exhibited) have all the entrances from the large atrium. They, of different sizes and heights, are arranged in three floors and reachable by stairs, lift and freight elevators. A skylight naturally illuminates every gallery.
The main exhibition hall, with its openings 19meters high, is a huge and flexible room. It can host big artworks. Its height is between 11 and 26 meters, and is illuminated by a wide skylight. The lighting system: The wide atrium, the exhibition galleries and the offices are illuminated with solar light from the skylights; for the artificial lighting, it has been chosen the LED technology-High efficiency. The sustainability: the utilization of local materials and with FSC certification, the choice of an efficient shell that disperses and consumes little energy, the shape of the atrium that guarantees good and natural ventilation and illumination, the use of renewable energy and passive systems and the water recovery system makes this project particularly careful at the sustainability subject.
