Snøhetta has been selected as the winners of an invited competition for the design of a new hotel to be located on the Hakaniemi waterfront in Helsinki, Finland. Aimed at becoming a “new beacon of Helsinki,” Hilbert’s Hotel will provide new public space for the city while increasing accommodation for visitors.
Last year saw the Alvar Aalto Foundation experience a record-breaking number of visitors at each of its four sites – a total of 42,755 as opposed to the 36,744 people that toured the sites in 2015.
Of those numbers, The Alvar Aalto Museum and the Muuratsalo Experimental House in Jyväskylä received a total of 20,005 visitors combined, half of which had arrived from outside of Finland to explore the Museum, while also continuing the recent trend of an increasing number of visits over the past five years.
After a career as a professional skateboarder, Helsinki-based Janne Saario has become one of few landscape architects in the world with a practice devoted completely to designing skate parks for young people. Saario’s designs—all of which are located in Europe—diverge from the typical brutalist stereotypes of concrete skate park masses, and rather, are site-specific and heavily influenced by their natural surroundings.
“Young people are our hope and future,” says Saario. “And by offering beautiful and meaningful surroundings to grow, like wonderful skate parks, we can make a positive change on their picture of the world and future behavior.”
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is abandoning plans for a museum in the Finnish capital after a proposal for funding was rejected by the Helsinki City Council, 53-32.
“We are disappointed that the Helsinki City Council has decided not to allocate funds for the proposed Guggenheim Helsinki museum, in effect bringing this project to a close,” Richard Armstrong, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, told the Helsinki Times.
In a comment to the Architects' Journal, Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa has expressed concern over the Guggenheim's plans to build a new museum in the city of Helsinki.
The project emphasises a consumerist and touristic view of art at the expense of the cultural and humane task of art. instead of strengthening local artistic traditions and practices, the project strengthens the already doubtful globalisation and commercialisation of art. The public funds could clearly be used in a more innovative and efficient manner to support Finnish artistic culture.
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Two months after the Finnish government vetoed funding for the Guggenheim Helsinki project, following an international competition won by Paris-based practice Moreau Kusunoki, it has been reported that supporters of the scheme have presented an updated proposal for the construction of the museum. According to The New York Times, "of its expected $144 million building costs, the City of Helsinki’s investment would cover a maximum of $89 million."
The future development of the Arabia Historic District in Helsinki has culminated in the second round of a two-stage competition.
Arabiazza(s) — one of the four proposals selected for the second stage — was developed by team leader Anssi Lassila and comprised of OOPEAA working in collaboration with Lunden Architecture and Gehl Architects acting as a consultant in urban public space. Through a sequential flow of spaces in the form of public squares, Arabiazza(s) fundamentally aims to encourage public interaction. The intent to engage a broad range of people — from students to tourists to workers — inspired the creation of multiple sheltered inner courtyards.
German collective Plastique Fantastique have created “superKOLMEMEN,” an inflatable structure encircling a historic sculpture in Three Smiths Square (Kolmen sepän aukio) in downtown Helsinki for Helsinki Design Week. Throughout the event, the installation was used as a space for lectures, performances and workshops, as well as a casual gathering place.
Metropolis Magazine has released their 2016 rankings of the world's most "livable" cities. Acknowledging that what makes a city "livable" can often be subjective, the team at Metropolis emphasizes that in creating the list they "focused on the concerns at Metropolis’ core—housing, transportation, sustainability, and culture." The result of this research was last year's top prize-winner Toronto dropping to the number 9 spot and Copenhagen, which last year took the number 4 spot, jumping to the top. Rounding out the top three are Berlin and Helsinki.
For a few months spanning from 2014 to last year, the Guggenheim Helsinki museum competition was the hottest topic in architectural media. Even as Moreau Kusunoki's more contextually-driven design was selected as the competition winner, debate raged on over whether the search by yet another city for an iconic building to call their own was ultimately good or bad for architecture as a whole. But now, funding for the project has been rejected by the Finnish government, putting the museum in danger of not being built at all.
The Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA) have announced a shortlist of 4 projects in contention for the Finlandia Prize for Architecture 2016. Now in its third year, the prize continues with the goal to “increase public awareness of high quality Finnish architecture and [to highlight] its benefits for our well-being.”
Following the tradition of the award, while the shortlist was selected by a panel of architects, the final winning project will be chosen by a non-architect. This year, former Prime Minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen will have the honor of picking the winner.
Find out more about the 4 projects after the break.
Alvar Aalto was born in Alajärvi in central Finland and raised in Jyväskylä. Following the completion of his architectural studies at the Helsinki University of Technology he founded his own practice in 1923, based in Jyväskylä, and naming it Alvar Aalto, Architect and Monumental Artist. Although many of his early projects are characteristic examples of 'Nordic Classicism' the output of his practice would, following his marriage to fellow Architect Aino Marsio-Aalto (née Marsio), take on a Modernist aesthetic. From civic buildings to culture houses, university centers to churches, and one-off villas to student dormitories, the ten projects compiled here—spanning 1935 to 1978—celebrate the breadth of Aalto's œuvre.
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.jpg?1471484603 "Courtesy of aalto university wood program")
.jpg?1471485478 "© LéaPfister")
