The proposal presents the Museum and its function to the city it stands in, thereby enhancing the urban context itself by providing Helsinki with an iconic building, one that will enhance the city as a prime cultural destination, Nordic in location, global in spirit.

Thus, the building itself will allow visitors to experience the city from within the Museum, and the Museum from within the city.

The Museum’s central volume is sliced in such a way that the closed, independent boxes incorporating the art galleries are exposed to the city. Arranged around the Central Hall, the spaces between these gallery-boxes create huge voids that act as windows, allowing visitors to make direct visual connections with the surrounding city: its cathedrals, its waterfront and South Harbor, Valkorsaari Island, Tahtitornin Vuori Park and other such landmarks.

The windows also incorporate bridges that connect the galleries so the visitor can experience the works of art in the context of the cityscape and in the context of the vast, welcoming interior of the building itself. The Museum, thus, acts as a mediator between each work of art and the city of Helsinki, the Museum and the Museum from within the city.