International opening - Museums Association

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International opening

Helsinki Art Museum, Finland
Eleanor Mills talks to director Maija Tanninen-Mattila about the revamp of the Helsinki Art Museum, which has a collection that can be seen on display in public buildings across the city

Designed by functionalist architect Helge Lundström, the building that houses Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) opened in 1937 and from 1938 was used as a tennis stadium, named the Tennis Palace. First established in 1976, HAM is now one of the largest art museums in Helsinki, and moved to the Tennis Palace in 1999.

The museum houses a collection of more than 9,000 artworks, and aims to bring art into people’s everyday lives. HAM reopened at the end of September after a major refurbishment that began in July 2014.

The museum’s exhibition space has doubled with this renovation. What do you aim to do with the new space?


With the doubled space our aim is to offer a better museum experience.

The space allows us to arrange several simultaneous exhibitions that complement each other, and allow the audience to reflect on art in different ways.

We will continue programming large-scale international exhibitions – Ai Weiwei in 2015, Yayoi Kusama in 2016 – but also dig deeper into the Finnish contemporary and modern art scene in an international context. An important goal for us is to offer free admission to at least a quarter of the museum.

Why and how did the refurbishment come about?

The architectural and historic value of the Tennis Palace was only recognised in the early 1990s, so plans to demolish it were abandoned.

The building was renovated to create an entirely new type of cultural and entertainment centre, whose magnificent inauguration was celebrated in spring 1999. The new residents were the Finnkino cinema complex, the Museum of Cultures and the Helsinki Art Museum (HAM). Over the past 15 years, the Tennis Palace has had tens of millions of visitors.

The Museum of Cultures has now moved to another location so HAM has gained access to its spaces, increasing our total exhibition and public space surface area from 1,500 sq
metres to 3,000 sq metres.

The main goal of the renovation is to make the building function even better than it did, and offer even better services to our visitors. Finnkino are also renovating their entrance, lobbies and restaurant services.

Both Finnkino and HAM will invest in digital marketing and information services inside and outside the building, and two service-designers have participated actively in the design process to improve the accessibility of the public spaces.

What kind of audience do you hope to attract?

At least a good proportion of the two million people who visit the Tennis Palace’s building every year, but haven’t yet popped into HAM or do not know yet what HAM is.

What is the most innovative part of the new exhibition space?

We are concentrating on the user experience. The museum is an interface between art and people, so we have been developing spaces with seamless connections to the services.

We want to provide visitors with easy and relaxed access to art, as well as different ways to experience exhibitions. For example, we always have free admission to the HAM collection exhibition and the HAM Gallery as well.

Which displays are new?

Our new ground floor space, HAM Corner, where we are starting pop-up art projects – this should give us new ways to interact with people visiting the Tennis Palace for cinema or something else other than art.

The first HAM Corner project is artist Ilona Valkonen who is turning the space into a florist's shop, which she calls Vieno Motors, to make and sell custom-made flower accessories and arrangements.

In the future, HAM Corner will host club evenings and other events too. The 12-metre-high exhibition galleries on the third floor give us endless possibilities regarding exhibitions and installations.

What are the strengths of your collection and exhibition programme?

Our strength is in the owners of our collection, which belongs to the City of Helsinki, indeed to all the people living in Helsinki. We are determined to make the collection more accessible to all.

From the 9,000 works of art HAM holds, approximately 3,500 can be found in public spaces such as schools, health centres and city offices.

The biggest strength of the collection is in Finnish contemporary art. It contains paintings by Tove Jansson which will be displayed in a permanent gallery dedicated to the artist. The Tove Gallery will open in January 2016.

The exhibitions at HAM are mostly temporary, but the nature of the programme is international, as well as supporting Finnish artists.

How does HAM’s mission compare with Kiasma and other contemporary art galleries in Helsinki?

I think of HAM as an art museum the size of Helsinki and the reason why I do is because of our public art collection – works from it are on display all over the city centre, in official buildings and out in suburbs, not only in our flagship exhibition space at the Tennis Palace.

The art of HAM, the art of the Helsinkians, is present in their everyday lives, creating discussions and meeting places, while simultaneously contributing to an interesting and beautiful urban environment to experience.

What does HAM add to the art-scene in Helsinki?

HAM ensures that the Helsinkians have a growing and well-taken-care-of art collection, and they have easy access to it. The art is visible in daycare centres, libraries, parks, residential areas and in the suburbs.

The new spaces in the Tennis Palace essentially add a new museum to Helsinki – a museum that is willing to develop itself with the help of its users into a kind of “art living room”, something that Helsinki has been lacking.

Project data

Cost €3.6m
Main funder The City of Helsinki Architects Susanna Anttila and NRT
Architects Designers Design Driven City, Pablo Riquelme, Leena Raudaskoski, Sanna Penttila, Iida Nylund


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