Guggenheim Helsinki

Our proposal strategically intensifies and reimagines the Guggenheim Museum producing an iconic cultural landmark by sculpting natural light through physical and conceptual layers. These strata develop a rich, dynamic and varied experience synergistically contextualizing the museum at multiple scales to the material and cultural fabric of Helsinki and Finland. The design supplants the object/icon building (visually distinct, discrete parts) with a new subtle icon, embedded in Finnish culture (emotional, connected) and redefines Helsinki as an urbanized landscape; an extension of the museum.

We strategically integrate the building into its context by articulating the unique qualities of the adjacent context. The building massing defines and simultaneously blurs the edges where city, park, wharf and water meet, redefining civic space between Helsinki’s port and historic core. At a regional scale the design links the museum to Helsinki’s “green fingers” by blending the new park with Tähtitornin vuori park to the west and imagines the roof as part of this extended archipelago. At a national scale the project evokes a Finnish ethos, manifesting the nations emotional connection to the natural landscape bathed in a sublime light.

Internally the museum is efficiently organized around a central core where a majority of the program is organized around the buildings main atrium. Here guests find Visitors Services and are oriented by vistas through adjacent programs and back to the port. The main atrium is accessed via multiple entrances that weave together city and museum to takes one on a journey through layers of landscape, shaping and shaped by light. The new park functionally houses a majority of the galleries that are accessed via a series of smaller atria. These atria erode landscape, blurring the interior and exterior spaces and programs and ones perception art. Our proposal articulates a new model for sustainable, integrated urban development.

PLUS SUM is a contemporary design practice focused on projects where strategic, systemic, and progressive ideas can be brought to bear on complex and dynamic design problems. Projects vary across type and scale and are always seeking new opportunities to uniquely express client goals and aspirations. We believe that design can add value to any situation, synthesizing disparate and conflicting issues, while revealing intangible qualities that stir the spirit, engage the intellect and activate the senses.

2014 Architect of the Year: PLUS-SUM Studio - 2014 International Design Awards
Project: Guggenheim Helsinki
Top Prize in Architecture, “Architectural Project of the Year 14.”

2014 Gold (First Prize in Architecture) - 2014 International Design Awards
Project: Guggenheim Helsinki
Architecture Category, Urban Design Sub-Category.

2014 Silver (Second Prize in Architecture) - 2014 International Design Awards
Project: Grey Matter – Louisville Children’s Museum
Architecture Category, Urban Design Sub-Category.

2014 Bronze (Third Prize in Architecture) - 2014 International Design Awards
Project: Grey Matter – Louisville Children’s Museum
Architecture Category, Conceptual Sub-Category.

2014 Bronze (Third Prize in Architecture) - 2014 International Design Awards
Project: nMAC
Architecture Category, Urban Design Sub-Category