Salah - extension to the national museum of Helsinki
Project information
submitted by
Axel Maxime Burkhard
Supervising professorship
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. José Gutierrez Marquez
Advisors
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Johannes Kuehn
Max Wasserkampf
Degree programme:
Architektur (Master of Science (M.Sc.))
Links
https://www.beta-architecture.co...
https://www.baunetz.de/campus-ma...
Project description
The National Museum in Helsinki, built in 1905 by Gesellius, Lindgren and Saarinen, is considered a symbol of the Finnish identity and is to be expanded in the near future. "Over the course of history, the original building constellation has gained in value. The lack of space led to a series of successive projects to extend the museum, none of which, however, came to fruition. These designs progressively drifted from an above-ground to an underground projection, leaving the context as untouched as possible. This running idea of excavation profoundly engages with the deep and hidden Helsinki. The Finnish capital is characterized by an underground master plan, whose invisible network of paths is told by „silent witnesses“, in the form of dark, restrained steel architecture, unexpectedly appearing in the cityscape. The tension between the visible and the invisible, between a vertical and a horizontal "secret" world can be sensed unobtrusively.
Sala- (prefix for secret in Finnish) aims to generate an autonomous spatial identity resulting from the reading of the place, while interpreting the needs of a contemporary museum extension. The developed architecture intends to preserve the aura of the place, highlight the existing qualities and hide a rich and unexpected underworld behind a quiet Pavilion.
Thus, Salah cultivates and celebrates the secret of Helsinki.