Guggenheim Foundation aims towards building museum on controversial site in Katajanokka

Plan includes partnership with Helsinki City Art Museum, an architecture competition, and a new museum building

Ari Wiseman

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By Vesa Sirén
     
      The long silence is over.
      The Guggenheim Foundation’s Deputy Director Ari Wiseman has conducted a feasibility study for the City of Helsinki regarding a new Guggenheim museum in the capital.
      Now he is ready to drop one news bombshell after another in quick succession to Helsingin Sanomat, speaking at his office on Hudson Street in New York.
      The first bit of news is the most obvious one: In its USD 2.5 million report (equal to EUR 1.7 million), the Guggenheim Foundation is to recommend that a Guggenheim museum should be set up in Helsinki.
      ”That is the decision we are leaning towards", Wiseman promises.
     
Do we need a new museum building, or would old walls do?
      ”Our experiences have shown that a specific-built new building is the best alternative for new kinds of needs”, Wiseman notes.
      Is that the reason for the fact that the Deutsche Guggenheim, which was set up in an old building in Berlin, has not become an internationally acclaimed phenomenon?
      ”The museum has a limited profile that has been designed for the presentation of the collections of for example Deutsche Bank. In Finland, our plans are much more expansive”, Wiseman reports.
      Would you recommend an architecture competition?
      ”It is the best alternative, as it is open to all”, Wiseman admits.
     
American architect Frank Gehry, whose design turned Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum into a success, already managed to announce in Helsingin Sanomat that as an avowed Alvar Aalto fan, he would personally like to design the new museum that is to be set up in Helsinki.
      ”I am not surprised. When I saw Aalto’s Finlandia Hall, I understood the effect its architectural solutions must have had on the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles”, Wiseman notes.
     
After having visited Finland five times, Wiseman already has a preliminary idea of where the museum should be set up.
      ”We have not yet committed ourselves to any specific location, but we understand the benefits Katajanokka would offer”, Wiseman says.
      This is the same Katajanokka site that has twice been the news in the past decade over expansive architectural projects that bit the dust after public and civic disappoval.
      The location, right next to the South Harbour and Market Square, is one of Helsinki's hottest development potatoes.
     
When it comes to funding , will the Guggenheim Foundation seek a partnership with one of the existing art institutes?
      ”This entire project has been launched as the Helsinki City Art Museum needs to be developed further and requires additional space."
     
It is quiet for a moment at the Guggenheim office on Hudson Street. The rush of information has to be absorbed.
      At present, things are not being kept hush-hush, as happened in January when the feasibility study was commissioned.
      Wiseman is speaking directly, confirming at the same time, why Helsinki’s representative in the project is Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, Director of the Helsinki City Art Museum, and nobody else.
      ”Janne is amazing, an ambitious partner in the best sense of the word, and eager to produce a successful report. At present, the Helsinki Art Museum has to operate in three different locations, and for example one of them, Tennis Palace, is not a very flexible exhibition venue”, explains Wiseman.
     
Thanks to the Guggenheim Foundation, the Helsinki Art Museum will now have an opportunity to get new premises as well as an international network and exhibitions circulated by the Foundation.
      At the same time, Finnish art circles may fear that the New York office will exercise its authority and that the Finnish perspective will wane.
      ”As the right-hand man to our new director Richard Armstrong, I can say that things have changed. Previously, other museums were given their orders from New York, but today we are speaking of a more equal exchange of ideas. For this reason, we establisned the position of a curator at our Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and even the planned new museum will need a curator who will work in Helsinki”, Wiseman continues.
      And the curator’s name is... Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén?
      ”Potentially.”
     
Helsinki naturally hopes that the name Guggenheim on the wall of the Helsinki Art Museum’s new building would attract tourists and a lot of money to the city, as has already happened in Bilbao.
      ”We have studied how far from the harbour cruise passengers usually go, and even in this respect, the scenically attractive Katajanokka location is convenient”, Wiseman adds.
     
Wiseman also points out that the planned Guggenheim Museum could help Helsinki to open up its art doors somewhat.
      ”Finland has a potent art scene, including strong institutions from the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma to the Helsinki City Art Museum and the Korjaamo Culture Factory. However, the country’s art life is isolated from the mainstream and for all that it is a fruitful and rich scene, it is also rather insular. Fewer artists are travelling, making art for the international art community, than in some other countries. Many are rooted in Helsinki and the focus is inward. Of course there are exceptions like [video artist and photographer] Eija-Liisa Ahtila, for instance", Wiseman contemplates.
     
In addition to the EUR 1.7 million feasibility study, the City of Helsinki and other financiers would have to invest another EUR 100 to 200 in a new building plus a tidy sum in operation costs.
      The costs would also include a licence fee covering the use of the name Guggenheim and the expertise of the Foundation.
      If the Bilbao effect repeats itself, Helsinki could show a profit, but for the time being, the only profit has been secured by the Guggenheim Foundation on its lucrative feasibility study.
      Wiseman points out that the Guggenheim Foundation is interested in Helsinki as it wants to improve its operations.
      ”In New York, the building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright restricts the way we wish to exhibit art. Because of our history, we are also surveying especially the traditions of abstract and conceptual art and their present status. Our vision is to set up in Helsinki a museum of the future, which would be more flexible and more experimental in scope. We are calling for interdisciplinary approach, performances, two- and three-dimensional works”, Wiseman continues.
     
When Wiseman is probed on practical examples, his answers are circumspect - for the first time in the interview.
      ”In our report we will outline an example of a certain exhibition season, but it has not been completed yet”, he says.
      Nevertheless, Wiseman points out that the temporary BMW Guggenheim Lab, a mobile lab that will travel to nine cities over six years, and which was opened in New York’s Lower East Side at the beginning of August, gives an inkling of the new philosophy.
     
The report on the feasibility study is to be submitted to the City of Helsinki by December 30th.
      The Gugggenheim Foundation has received orders for such feasibility studies ever since the Bilbao Guggenheim turned into a goldmine.
      Can you promise that this report will not just circulate the same sentences as were used in the feasibility studies commissioned by Hong Kong, Salzburg, Taichung, Guadalajara, and Vilnius, and which did not lead to the construction of a new museum?
      ”We have new executives and new ideas. In other words, the outcome will certainly be new”, Wiseman promises.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 21.8.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mayor Pajunen certain of arrival of Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki (22.8.2011)
  Helsinki City Council rejects Katajanokka hotel project at heated meeting (8.4.2010)
  Guggenheim chooses Helsinki over Taipei, Rio, and Guadalajara (19.1.2011)

See also:
  "Wow" architecture does not fit comfortably into the Helsinki skyline (8.8.2006)
  BACKGROUND: Was the axeing of the Armi Center in Katajanokka a missed opportunity? (8.8.2006)

Links:
  Helsinki Art Museum
  Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (Wikipedia)
  BMW Guggenheim Lab

VESA SIRÉN / Helsingin Sanomat
vesa.siren@hs.fi