A new perspective – the New National

Uusi Kansallinen (in English: the New National) is a two-stage, open ideas architecture competition for the design of an Annex to the National Museum of Finland in Helsinki. The competition has been jointly organized by the Finnish Heritage Agency, the National Museum of Finland and Senate Properties.

The Annex will be built adjacent to the historic and distinguished main building designed by Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen.

The new Annex will facilitate the production of large-scale and technically demanding exhibitions for the National Museum of Finland. In addition to exhibitions, its multi-use, easily adaptable spaces will be well suited for a diverse range of cultural, art and recreational events, conferences and other functions.

The historic main building and its new Annex, together with the new, year-round publicly open courtyard park for different communities and urban events, will provide a unique, highly diverse range of valued experiences. The core of this concept is a multicultural perspective on Finnish society, its cultural heritage and its evolution. Uusi Kansallinen is to be a functional and architectural reinterpretation of what the concept of ‘national’ means to us today.

The diverse international program of the National Museum of Finland aims to broaden the understanding of our rich, culturally complex history and habitat and helps to perceive their implications to our present and future lives.

For competition participants

The official language of the competition is Finnish. The competition programme is also available in English. The background materials can be downloaded by registering with the Buildercom project bank.