Archinect - News

Finnish government pulls funding for the Guggenheim Helsinki

2016-09-08T13:16:00-04:00

The Guggenheim Foundation's Helsinki museum, the design of which was chosen after a hotly anticipated competition last year, is now missing a major financial backer, namely, the government of Finland. Prior to its withdrawal, Finland was going to pick up construction costs and a portion of the operating fees in exchange for top-tier artworks and exhibitions from the Guggenheim.

However, this pull-out isn't entirely unexpected. Before the winning design by Moreau Kusunoki Architectes was even chosen, there were rumblings of dissent: many in Finland felt that the Guggenheim was becoming a bland franchise, to the point that an alternative competition, "The Next Helsinki," was launched to solicit other designs. As Sampo Terho, parliamentary head of the Finns Party, said, “This is the end of the matter, we have ruled out state funding (for Guggenheim) once and for all, for this government.”

Listen to our interview with Moreau Kusunoki Architectes about their winning design for the Guggen...

The Next Helsinki shortlist demonstrates that a new Guggenheim isn't the only option

2015-04-21T18:02:00-04:00

The controversy surrounding the Guggenheim Helsinki has made the project a hot topic in recent years. While the large response to the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition is already widely known, is a new Guggenheim Museum truly what Helsinki needs? This is the burning question of The Next Helsinki counter-competition organizers, who describe the Guggenheim franchise as "the cultural equivalent of Starbucks". Organized by Checkpoint Helsinki, Terreform and G.U.L.F. (Global Ultra Luxury Faction), architects, designers, urbanists, and environmentalists worldwide submitted their alternative ideas on how the site can be transformed to best meet Helsinki's cultural, spatial, and sustainability needs.

The call for ideas drew in 217 international entries from 40 countries on five continents, according to architect Michael Sorkin, who chaired the jury. In the end, the jury shortlisted eight entries they deemed as outstanding ideas -- which are not necessarily refined and final proposals. (...

Editor's Picks #385

2014-09-18T17:50:00-04:00

The latest entry in the Showcase: series featured Barkow Leibinger 's Stadthaus M1, located in the "sustainable model district" of Vauban in the already so-called "green city" of Freiburg.

Plus, Nicholas Korody looked at Factory Berlin, a "start-up campus" hosted by Google, built on a site where "a section of the Berlin Wall...once housed a German Democratic Republic (GDR) watchpost". Chris Teeter recommended "if you want to keep the political going in your architecture crit, you could probably look at what I have considered the 3 downtowns of Berlin; look at them historically maybe - Kuferstendamm (west), Alexander Platz (east), and Potsdamer Plat (unified)".

News
Mildred Friedman, a curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in the 1970s and ’80s who helped both the museum and the contemporary design and architecture it celebrated become objects of international acclaim, died on Sept. 3 in Manhattan. She was 85.

Until October 31, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation is...

The Next Helsinki counter-competition launches in response to Guggenheim Helsinki controversy

2014-09-09T21:07:00-04:00

On the same day that Stage One of the Guggenheim Helsinki competition will conclude, The Next Helsinki is launching their own international call for alternative solutions to attract the best ideas that they believe would better meet the needs and enhance the city of Helsinki, Finland. Launched by a group of independent arts organizations and chaired by Michael Sorkin, The Next Helsinki bluntly addresses the controversy that the Guggenheim Helsinki competition has sparked [...].

Below is The Next Helsinki announcement:

"Coinciding with the end of the official competition for the design of the controversial Guggenheim Helsinki, a group of independent arts organizations has issued a call for submissions for alternative ideas. This competition—titled The Next Helsinki—is designed to attract innovative ideas about how to more fully meet the city’s cultural, spatial, and sustainability needs.

Following the success of the Guggenheim Bilbao in transforming that region’s tourist economy, many city managers have been seduced by the fantasy that a high-concept museum, designed by a starchitect, will turn around its urban fortunes in a similar way. Advocates of this branding formula see Helsinki as an ideal candidate for a new Guggenheim franchise. Yet the proposal has generated a surprisingly heated public debate among Finland’s citizenry, with pro and anti-Guggenheim sentiment running high.

The Next Helsinki competition aims to elevate the debate by giving voice to b...