Hey5 has unveiled its design for the National Museum of Finland, an entry for a recent international design competition. The scheme is titled “Suppa,” inspired by the typical Finnish landform where a hollow is created by the melting of buried blocks of glacial ice. The ambition behind the proposal was to create a bold object containing a flexible organizational system to host the museum's demanding international exhibitions.
The addition opens a dialogue between old and new, one which is functionally connected underground, but visually disconnected overground. Placing a majority of the functions underground allows for the retention of the existing overground parkland, while a connection between the new and old structures is made through a reflective architectural language.
The existing museum features a National Romantic architecture, a counter-response to industrialization and machine production, instead celebrating craft and romantic tradition. The new addition is seen as a reinterpretation of the concept of “National,” embodying the spirit of “the object in the landscape.” The addition becomes a three-dimensional piece of furniture, with a curved underside defining the spatial arrangement of the entrance lobby while its top surface creates a landscape within the restaurant.
The translucent façade gives the volume an ephemeral cloud-like appearance. By elevating the mass as a suspended volume, a sunken chamber is created, dividing the scheme into four levels. The top level becomes the “image of the project” housing a restaurant. The next level below is a park, manipulating the ground to create a physical connection to the sunken lobby.
The first sunken level features the entrance lobby, café, and ship, connected underground to the north wing of the existing museum. Below that, new exhibition spaces are located, where generous light enters through a crack in section on the level above, which also serves to allow views into the exhibition spaces. A flexible arrangement of exhibition spaces can easily be connected or separated to allow for multiple arrangements.
Team: Beatriz de Uña Bóveda, Jarlath Cantwell, Pej Gombert, Kuba Kolec, Ori Merom
News via: hey5
