2014 – Helsinki [sun] museum _ Helsinki Finland
Project Helsinki Museum (proposal for Guggenheim competition)
Surface 12 000 m2
Place Helsinki, Finland
Team Eric Cassar, Fadia Ajili, Leopold Bouat, Emily de Oliveira, Gong He, Sami El Khattabi, Elena Varela
General principles The Helsinki [Sun] Museum architecture is both support, subject, connections, movement and effects.
More than a museum : The Helsinki [Sun] Museum extends sunshine duration on a huge open air theatre place. It provides symphonies of climatic effects and shines art over Helsinki.
The [Sun] Pavilions : A Network Spreading Art in the city
The Helsinki [Sun] museum is a physical and virtual network that includes one main building and connected satellites : [Sun] pavilions that spread through time and space. Art pieces are not only confined in one place but also disseminated : an invitation for visitors to discover the city and for citizen to discover the new exhibitions.
Similar to ship containers settled vertically and open 24h a day, [Sun] Pavilions contain one protected art piece : an installation or Video. Periodically, a new [Sun] Pavilion is designed by an invited contemporary designer continuing the museum and the famous Finish design history.
Connected to the pavilions, the museum combine one huge public place with 3 emergent volumes and a tower that localize the museum entrance. A huge screen, opened to the city, displays exhibitions informations.
The [Sun] Tower extends sunshine duration & create singular light games
The [sun] tower is porous and partly covered by wood. This environmental, intelligent and interactive tower includes huge blades that reflect light thanks to rotating mirrors controlled by a computer program. The [Sun] tower extends sunshine duration all over the site and plays with natural climatic elements. It creates a wide range of singular sensorial events : symphonies of light effects (by day and night), snow effects (using the light reflector as a heat source, some snow surfaces can be melted), water effects…
A huge public place as an open air theatre
The huge public space is protected from the wind and softly inclined towards the sea. It invites to sit down. Similar to an open air theatre, it can serve as a setting for special events (concerts, happenings…).
Visitors enter the museum plunging in an inside public place full of light. This atrium connects every element of the program. Around, 3 different volumes with accessible roofs propose various typologies of spaces both inside and outside.
Exhibition concept declines 3 main themes : Walls, Weightlessness (visitors feel as floating inside a volume) and hybrid connections
Connected to the city sky, the first volume (exhibition 1) is similar to a huge stair. It combines series of mineral / vegetal terraces ending on a 360° panoramic platform. Inside, exhibition rooms are organized along a slope that give access to balconies suspended in the narrow void of a high gallery, in front of a huge wall.
Connected to the new park through wild vegetation, the second volume (exhibition 2) is rectangular and opened on an exhibition garden. Inside, a system of moving walls allows various space configurations.
Connected to the sea, the third volume (exhibition 3) is similar to a pier including stands. Like a screen, it shines thanks to the [Sun] tower light reflexions. Inside,the volume is divided by series of walls that delimit the restaurant, offices and an exhibition volume crossed by boxes. Those floating boxes are both content and container. They offer small exhibition rooms inside and support for art pieces visible from the main gallery.
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