Addition is almost always an act of assimilation. It is a balance between respecting history and creating something contemporary. For this reason, we decided to build the annex to the north of the existing National Museum as an addition, as any other move seemed to hinder the possibility of creating one cohesive master plan. We felt this would ultimately obstruct the incredible park, which has the potential to serve as an integral sculpture garden for this museum. We have redesigned this park as a botanical garden, a collection of national flora, analogous to the collection of Finnish artifacts, uniting the relationship of the museum to the garden, a Finnish backdrop for future objects. As such, our proposal is a continuation of the revered main building, striking a delicate balance between honoring what exists, and confronting the institution with a contemporary mirror.

As a guide for the project’s proportion, architectural elements, and composition, we looked carefully at a project not far from Helsinki; Gunnar Asplund’s addition to Gothenburg City Hall, with its flattened, geometrically abstracted interpretation of the Beaux Arts structure adjacent. We have intended here to act with similar care to the existing context. At the same time, we have pushed one step further to create a building with a strong contemporary image, completing the original building’s collage of Finnish motifs. We meet this building with slanted facade walls, walls that terminate as a pointed roof above. It allows for a courtyard inside of this pitched exterior, a generous gallery for new collections, wrapped by a mezzanine gallery and restaurant above. On the one hand, this building strongly evokes the roof lines of the original museum, yet also has an abstract, shimmering pyramidal quality, a new icon and an addition worthy of the 21st century.