Working group favours construction of Guggenheim museum in Helsinki

A working group examining the initiative to build a Guggenheim art museum in Helsinki has come out in favour of the project. In a proposal issued on Tuesday, the group says that the museum could be built on the island of Katajanokka in the centre of Helsinki.
      The Helsinki City Board and City Council will discuss the proposals in the coming weeks, and plans are for a decision by the City Council already in February.
      To accommodate the building, the Kanavaterminaali harbour terminal for ship passengers would have to be demolished.
     
If Helsinki accepts the project, and if the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation gives its approval, an international architectural competition will be held. A winning proposal could come in 2013, and construction could begin in 2015, which means that the building might be ready in 2017 or 2018.
      In addition to Helsinki, the project requires the approval of the board of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in the north of Spain, as it has a veto over the construction of any museum going under the name of Guggenheim in Europe.
      “The geographical distance is great”, says Juan Ignacio Vidarte, deputy director of the foundation, and director of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. Helsinki is not generally envisaged as a competitor with Bilbao.
     
The Helsinki Guggenheim would be approximately the same size as the one in New York, but significantly smaller than the one in Bilbao.
      The total surface area of the museum would be about 12,000 square metres, of which about 4,000 square metres would be for the exhibition.
      Kiasma, Helsinki’s Museum of Contemporary art has about as much total floor space as the planned Guggenheim, but only 3,300 square metres of exhibition space.
     
The net annual costs of the Helsinki Art Museum are EUR 4.3 million. The Guggenheim would bring an additional EUR 3.7 million in costs.
      The new museum would be part of the Guggenheim network in Europe, which now includes museums in Bilbao, Venice, and Berlin.
      In addition to exhibitions, the Helsinki Guggenheim concept would involve an extensive educational part. In addition, the programme would involve design and architecture. It remains open if this would happen in cooperation with the Helsinki Design Museum and the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
     
Guggenheim Foundation Deputy Director Ari Wiseman proposes three large and several small exhibitions for the Helsinki museum, one of which would be planned specifically for Helsinki.
      The other large exhibitions would include works from the collections of other Guggenheim museums.
      The Wassily Kandinsky theme and the Pop Art exhibition currently on display in New York would undoubtedly raise interest in Helsinki, as would the Richard Serra and Constantin Brancus exhibitions on display in Bilbao.

More on this subject:
 NEWS ANALYSIS: Guggenheim study no guarantee
 Substantial donations in the offing for Guggenheim Museum

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Guggenheim chooses Helsinki over Taipei, Rio, and Guadalajara (19.1.2011)
  Helsinki could get its own Guggenheim (18.1.2011)
  Mayor Pajunen certain of arrival of Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki (22.8.2011)
  Guggenheim Foundation aims towards building museum on controversial site in Katajanokka (23.8.2011)

Links:
  The Guggenheim Foundation
  Guggenheim New York website: City of Helsinki Receives Study For Potential Guggenheim Museum