This competition proposal for the Guggenheim Museum Helsinki explores the blurred boundary between nature and culture. The project asks a simple but radical question: what if a museum behaved like a forest?
Instead of standing apart from its surroundings, the museum merges with the landscape.
Concept
The core idea weaves two themes together: A forest as a museum, a museum as a forest.
Rather than overwhelming visitors with images and sound, the proposal rebalances the senses. The forest offers calm, depth, and time. In parallel, it reconnects art with the wider city.
This approach draws from Scandinavian folklore, where forests act as places of mystery, reflection, and transformation.
Rethinking the Museum
Many museums struggle to feel necessary or welcoming. In contrast, forests invite people without instruction.
For this reason, the project treats the museum not as a monument but as terrain. The brief revealed a near-perfect match between the ground-level site area and the required museum programme. As a result, the proposal adopts a ground-scraping strategy.
The forest and the museum remain distinct. However, they operate as one experience.
Urban & Landscape Strategy
The forest extends visual connections across the site. It links the park opposite and creates new pedestrian crossings.
At a larger scale, boreal forest defines the geography around Helsinki. By bringing it into the city centre, the project reveals the grain of the wider landscape.
The forest rises gently toward Tähtitorninvuori Park and bows toward the South Harbour buildings. Meanwhile, the museum’s modest height preserves long views from the water.
Public Realm & Access
The forest functions as a public space for everyone. It acts as both an open-air museum and a civic landscape.
Access aligns seamlessly with surrounding levels. Visitors enter from Eteläranta, Laivasillankatu, and the quay.
From the northern entrance, a natural route unfolds. It spirals around a central ramp and leads upward into the forest.
Spatial Experience
Inside, the museum remains single storey. This creates generous, continuous galleries.
Above, the forest removes the idea of a ceiling. Together, they form a surreal and immersive experience. A café and restaurant sit within the forest itself, deliberately breaking traditional museum adjacencies.
The result feels like a room without limits.
Infrastructure & Servicing
A service route runs along the western edge of the site. Because of level differences, the forest bridges over it.
Therefore, the route remains fully functional yet visually discreet. It reads as a back street rather than an urban scar.
Environmental Strategy
The museum sits low to reduce exposure to wind and cold. Meanwhile, the forest acts as a climatic buffer.
Generous glazing integrates solar cells, which filter light while generating energy. In addition, the planted boreal forest requires minimal water and little maintenance.
Rainwater filters through the active soil layer and feeds a greywater system.
Structure & Materials
The primary structure uses cross-laminated timber. Bolted connections allow future adaptation.
All timber comes from sustainably managed forests and supports local craftsmanship during assembly.
As a result, the building balances longevity with flexibility.
Outcome
This proposal reimagines the museum as landscape. It places art, nature, and people into a shared experience.
Ultimately, it suggests that culture does not need to dominate its context. Instead, it can grow from it.
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