Amos Rex | Helsinki, Finland | 2018

Architects: JKMM Architects
Design Team: Asmo Jaaksi, Freja Stahlberg-Aalto, Katja Savolainen, Teemu Kurkela, Samuli Miettinen, Juha Mäki-Jyllilä, Edit Bajsz, Markus Manninen, Christopher Delany, Marko Pulli, Jussi Vepsäläinen, Jarno Vesa, Päivi Meuronen, and Noora Liesimaa
Client: Amos Rex
Project Management: Haahtela-rakennuttaminen Oy
General Contractor: Haahtela
Structural Designers: Sipti Oy
Structural Design of The Domes: Sweco Rakennetekniikka Oy
Photographer: Angel Gil, Tuomas Uusheimo, and Mika Huisman

Amos Rex Art Museum is located in the heart of Helsinki. The new museum building introduces contemporary architecture to the prestigious site with historically valuable architecture. The connection between the past and the present creates an interesting starting point for the design of the new building.

The entrance to Amos Rex is through Lasipalatsi (“glass palace”), a distinguished 1930s Functionalist pavilion comprising restaurants, shops, the Bio Rex cinema and an open square behind it. All the new build gallery spaces of Amos Rex, however, are underground. This 6,230 square metre building is designed below Lasipalatsi Square due to the historically sensitive context of the neighbouring 19th century neo-classical barracks.

The Lasipalatsi Square – formerly military parade ground – would remain as an important open public space within Helsinki while also allowing the public to enjoy Amos Rex’s only visible new built elevation, its roofscape. The solution came in the form of highly sculptural roof lights that also address the challenge of bringing daylight into the subterranean exhibition spaces. The roof lights create a new topography, their gently rolling forms playing on the idea of an urban park in keeping with the integrity of the square.

Inside the gallery spaces, visitors looking up to the generous steel-framed concrete skylights will feel connected to the city through carefully considered views opening out to the street-level above.

From a museum design point of view, the structure of the large domed skylights has enabled JKMM to shape a column-free 2,200 square metre exhibition hall. Curators will find this a flexible space in which to mount exhibitions. The hall’s scale is awe-inspiring with the ceiling domes, and their historical associations, creating their own particular sense of drama. The subtle quality of light in the top-lit exhibition hall is similar to that achieved through clerestory lighting.

Inside the Museum, sloping stairs lead up from the exhibition hall to Lasipalatsi’s foyer, where visitors enter the building through the 1930s doors of the Bio Rex cinema. JKMM has restored the 550-seat cinema auditorium together with rest of the listed Lasipalatsi Pavilion. This will be open to the general public as well as to museum visitors and show both art house and mainstream films. Together with the Lasipalatsi Pavilion, the museum complex extends to just over 13,000 sqm.

From an architectural and a cultural perspective, Helsinki’s evolving urban identity has been paramount in conceiving the Amos Rex project, a truly exciting new center for the visual arts.