JKMM Architects, winners of the two-stage design competition to extend the National Museum of Finland has submitted the proposal entitled “Atlas” for outline planning permission. Schedule to be completed and to open to the public in 2025, the project is part of Finland’s on-going investment in culture during its post-pandemic recovery period.
The first phase in the realization of the Museum’s extension has begun with the submission of the plans of Atlas for planning approval. The project, putting in place a 6300 square meter addition to the museum creates a new entrance, exhibition spaces, and a garden restaurant.
Located in Helsinki, the existing museum is a listed early 19th-century building by Gesellius, Lindgren, Saarinen. Considered one of Finland’s most important architectural landmarks, showcasing the National Romantic style, the building, situated at the center of the city, will take on a new independent extension, generating additional exhibition space; workshops; a new restaurant in the museum’s underused enclosed garden; and improved access including an inviting new entrance for the Museum.
Respecting the surrounding listed garden designed by Lindgren, the freestanding project creates a pavilion-like structure. “The round disc-shaped white concrete roof that appears to float over structural glass within the stone-walled garden of the Museum is, in fact, so simple, geometric and even primeval in its form that it has an instantly universal appeal”. Generating a nod to Aalto’s Finlandia Hall, the project, designed by JKMM takes on a white envelope, introducing light into the streetscape.
