Helsinki Mayor not surprised at announced closure of Berlin Guggenheim Museum

Pajunen says move could actually improve Helsinki's position

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The announcement that the Guggenheim Museum in Berlin would be closed at the end of the year did not come as a surprise to Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen.
      Mayor Pajunen says that he knew that there were plans to close the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum already last autumn.
     
The planned move was announced on Monday by Deutsche Bank, which has run the museum in cooperation with the Guggenheim Foundation since 1997.
      “This does not affect the Guggenheim report. It is still valid”, Pajunen said.
      “The closing of the museum in Berlin naturally puts the Helsinki project in a better position. It would be the only Guggenheim museum in the north of Europe”, Pajunen emphasises.
     
The Deutsche Guggenheim Museum in Berlin is one of five in the world. The facility, which is located on Unter den Linden in a bank building 100 years old, has 380 square metres of exhibition space.
      Last year 140,000 visitors came to the museum. The plan for Helsinki is for a museum ten times as big, and is expected to attract 500,000 visitors a year.
      “The contract with the Guggenheim Foundation runs out at the end of the year, and we want to expand our operations on our premises”, says Deutsche Bank spokesman Johannes Marten.
     
The bank wants to use the space now occupied by the museum as an art exhibition space, and as a forum of politics and economics.
      “The bank is negotiating over a new type of cooperation with the Guggenheim Foundation”, Marten says.
      “We are proud of the results that we have achieved together with Deutsche Bank in the past 14 years”, said Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in a press release issued on Monday.
     
According to information received by Helsingin Sanomat, the foundation continues to have high hopes for the Helsinki project, and there is a feeling that prospects of a Helsinki museum might have been a factor in the decision to close down the Berlin location.
      According to Helsingin Sanomat sources, the decision to shut down the Berlin museum was reached amicably.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Ministry of Culture trashes its own Guggenheim assessment (2.2.2012)
  Launch of Guggenheim project would cost nearly 5 million (18.1.2012)
  Opponents of Guggenheim gather forces (17.1.2012)

Helsingin Sanomat