In asking ourselves where to begin, the most critical question always came back to one thought; how do we create a true cultural building and icon for the Museum of History and the Future in Turku? This has been the central point of architectural interrogation. For answers, we paid close attention to Turku’s history and the elements that constitute its culture: the archipelago, its mercantile history with its ships and ports at heart, the richness of its natural environment, and its state-of-the-art industry and science. Our project aims to resolve multiple challenges with a singular strategy. The necessity for flexibility in the program, the building’s collectivism and identity, its singular expression within the master plan, the need for an economy of assembly and pre-fabrication, and sustainability goals.

The round form gives the museum its own distinct architectural identity as a new institution, recognizing it as an independent entity within the concurrently evolving district. We propose for the new museum to then assume authenticity, by a distinctive recognizable sculptural form -the circle- that can be identified with legibility from the other buildings that compose the masterplan. The building nonetheless remains at heart fully integrated and part of this masterplan by the sloping gesture of the roof, the shading offered by the canopy, by virtue of its low-rise architecture, the multiplicity of visual access points and views, the rich vernacular feel the tree trunks, all working in tandem to generate spatial and civic permeability. These tree trunks come from various Finnish species and are categorized within the building by the size of the species and the height of the roof, bringing a larger natural context of Finland to the project. The covered plaza under the roof shell, which appears to float above, creates outdoor space for visitors who want to spend time or meet without entering the museum, and at the same time an entrance to the museum itself and a place for public art and cultural interventions in this new collective civic icon.

The walls of the cube are clad in alternating glass plates and a cast aluminum skin to reduce the large format glass sheets as well as control daylight for desired levels inside. The cast aluminum panels bring a contemporary mirroring of the trees, through a process of 3D scanning various tree barks, making resin molds from the scans, and casting the aluminum against those patterns. In this way, we tie together the two materials of otherwise contrasting appearance. The structural concept, finding its reference in the masts of sailing ships, reduces interior divisions and vertical supports for this large circular canopy, with large steel tension cables that create the roofline of the building, while the tree trunks inside are also in tension, so that they together act as a sheer structure. This allows for a variety of configurations of the interior, able to change and adapt to the needs of the museum, as no interior partitions are structural. This combination of compressive and tensile strength created by the forest of Finnish trees that populate the perimeter and interior use the properties of this material to its full potential. The trees in tension work to pull down on the roof, increasing the tensile rigidity of the cables above and sandwiching the compressed trees below.

The museum is at once archaic and modern. At dusk, the interior light below the pure circle emanates from the center like the bright light of a fire around which people can gather. Central to a museum in the 21st century is the idea of openness, transparency, a forum like space for congregation both within the cube and its periphery. The proposal blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, together with the programmatic flexibility built into the project, creates a resilient building, responding to the need for collective appropriation. The result is a building that belongs to all, and although new in expression, honors deeply the history of the oldest city in Finland.