The international competition to design a Finnish satellite of the Guggenheim has been won by a Paris-based, French-Japanese studio founded by Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki in 2011. The New York-based foundation and its Finnish partners announced today, 23 June, the result of the competition, which attracted 1,715 entries.
The 11-strong jury, which included Nancy Spector, the deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum, praised the young architects' design for a building featuring a cluster of pavilions informally arranged around plazas and beneath a lighthouse-like tower. While further work would be needed to "resolve vertical circulation", the jury chose the design because it was "distinctive and contemporary, without being iconic".
The proposed building has the added advantage that it could expand on Helsinki's waterfront, "if required". The design competition specifies there should be around 4,000 sq. meters of exhibition space, making the total display space similar in size to the New York museum's gallery space.
In a statement, Richard Armstrong, the director of the Guggenheim Foundation, congratulated the architects for meeting the design brief with "elegance, sensitivity and clarity". The design was the popular choice in an exhibition of the six shortlisted scheme, which closed in May. Winning support from the citizens of Helsinki—and its politicians—is crucial, if the design is to be built. Backed by Helsinki's mayor Jussi Pajunen, the project still needs to receive a green light from the city authorities. Ritva Viljanen, the deputy mayor of Helsinki who was a member of the competition jury, says that she expects the project will be presented to the municipality in the autumn. "Helsinki can bring new values to the Guggenheim brand," she says. She is enthusiastic about the winning design's Finnish character—black wood is a traditional Finnish material, she says.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Guggenheim Helsinki Supporting Foundation, Ari Lahti, announced today that "one third" of the €30m that private funders are seeking to raise had been pledged. The building is a €130m project, excluding the Guggenheim's fee for lending works.
Hiroko Kusunoki and Nicolas Moreau bring to the project experience gained working in the studio's of leading Japanese architects Shigeru Ban and Sanaa respectively. In 2008 they helped set up the French office of the Tokyo-based architect Kengo Kuma. Museum projects that they have worked on include Louvre-Lens, designed by Sanaa and Shigeru Ban's Nomadic Museum. Moreau Kusunoki has designed a House of Cultures and Memories for Cayenne, French Guiana, which is a work in progress.