Museum for History and Future

4 islands

At the end of a pearl necklace of public buildings along the "Aurajoki", between the "Archipelago" and Turku Cathedral, in direct dialogue with Turku Castle and its park, the new Museum for History and Future is being built. It presents itself by day and by night with an open and inviting gesture for people coming from all over the world. With its contemporary modesty, it further intensifies the majestic role of Turku Castle as an very important landmark and lays the next puzzle for the further development of the riverside as a place for cultural life. 

Architecture deepens the identity of a place and is the quintessence of all the good reasons to do it this way and not otherwise, at this place.

The archipelago is the spatial transition scenario from the sea to Turku. Thousands of small and large islands formed by the ice ages. The ice flowed over and polished the underlying rock masses, which became visible again as polished rocks after the ice receded. Even thousands of years after the ice melted, the striations (striae) are still clearly visible on the hard rocks.

Turku Castle dates back to the 13th century and is the largest surviving medieval building in Finland. The medieval main castle consists of four fragments, two aisles and two towers. It is of great urban significance for the identity of Finland and Turku.

The urban planning approach creates a common green space with Turku Castle, a common green territory as a transition to the sea. It is not a small-town urban structure extension. A reflective geometry is placed in this new natural space.

A contemporary museum with a welcoming gesture for the whole world, with bright, poetic interiors and an intensive dialogue between inside and outside, not a closed museum, but a museum where you can also experience inside where you are. A museum that reflects the surroundings to varying degrees, depending on the lighting conditions and allows views through, horizontally and vertically, open and transparent when entering the building, an open membrane between the city and the sea, evoking a feeling of transcendence, for a hopeful future, sustainable and just.

A museum with maximum spatial flexibility for diverse spatial sequences in exhibition planning. A museum which, due to its location, is equally accessible from all directions, touching the ground as little as possible and creating harmonious outdoor spaces for art and culture. A museum whose inner materiality makes it a silent servant of the exhibits and creates an artistic tranquillity for visitors, but also a museum with a compact design and a highly insulated outer wall structure for high energy efficiency and economy and which guarantees longevity over its entire life cycle. A museum which, like a  living  organism,  can  be  extended  by a minimum of

4500 m² on the layers of the urban structure and respecting the scale of the context.

Four floating, cantilevered, archipelago islands, each with 750 m² of exhibition space, enable a varied tour on the upper floor with views in all directions back to the city of Turku. The 5 metre high square exhibition rooms allow maximum flexibility for varied room sequences, for all types of collections with new presentation techniques similar to a science centre.

Because of the symmetry of he floor plan in all directions, it is possible to walk through the entire museum in a circle. You return to the starting point from where you left without changing direction, like a Magelan orbit around the earth.

These 4 archipelago islands, analogous to the 4 fragments of Turku Castle, are grouped around a 14 metre high and open atrium. It is a meeting point for various activities and gives visitors their first poetic, unforgettable architectural experience.

Between the skerries, the atrium can be experienced on the inside and views to the outside are possible. Lifts, staircases and ancillary rooms are located outside the skerries.

The floating skerries projecting free 13 metres in all directions on the transparent glass base, the water, give the building a welcoming appearance and enable an internal organisational structure of equal entrances from all directions. This principle keeps the built-up area rather small due to the smaller ground floor area, which is an added value for the proportion of green space.

The main traffic comes from the north-ouest side,  from the new terminal and the city. A southern pedestrian promenade  along the waterfront is also planned, which is why the most frequented entrance is probably located in the ouest, gathering the people from the city and the new terminal, with a view to the sea. From here, the 14 meters high, open, bright and inviting atrium is accessed. 

The loading yard in the north-eastern area is part of the green space concept between two multifunctional retention basins, keeps the park area free of traffic and thus enhances its design. ( landscape competition )

The north-ouestern part of the building houses the workshops for authors, a two storey high room articulation. In the ouestern part of the building, the museum shop and its ancillary rooms are located on the ground floor as part of the atrium, with the staff rooms on the mezzanine floor above.

The auditorium and the event rooms with a view to the sea are located in the southern section facing the riverbank. The auditorium has a good access to the restaurant, which is orientated towards the sea and the park with a covered terrace overlooking the park with a view to Turku Castle and the stage. Above the restaurant, the mezzanine floor houses offices for experts from the creative industries.

Beautiful shaded lounge areas and terraces can be created under the overhangs in combination with art, water, greenery and lounge areas. 

The bright, reflective, seamless concrete walls, 40 cm thick with added uralite porphyrites from Tammela and Kalvola, connect this luminous stone with the context. By grinding and polishing this concrete mixture ( in analogy to the rock structures of the  archipelago ground by the ice) a lively image of the facade is created. A glowing stone, 4 islands floating on the water.

All structural precautions against stromwater are provided. The building does not have a basement floor and stands on pilotis, so that the groundfloor is ventilated. All technical rooms are on the upper floors. The managment of rainwater can be planned  economically and with  a minimum of risk. The project of maximum green creates a maximum of permeable surfaces.