Guggenheim Competition | Helsinki, Finland

The mostly wooden city of Helsinki was destroyed by fire in 1808, which created the opportunity to entirely rebuild. Helsinki underwent further industrialization, with ship building in 1865, and soon thereafter specializing in the fabrication of ice-breakers in 1910. Finland has a long history living with and adapting to the sea and ice.

A frost flower is a threshold between material states of liquid and solid formed on thin sea ice when the atmosphere is much colder than the underlying ice.

A museum is similar to a frost flower, in that it serves as a threshold between art and people. Everyone sees and experiences art differently. Therefore, a museum should provide opportunities from public social interaction to more private contemplative and intimate moments.

It's only when we truly feel alone with art that we can be ourselves, open our minds, respectfully take the time to really ‘see’ what lies before us…what only we can see as an individual, and hopefully even better understand ourselves.

In a similar manner to the ancient origami art of folding paper, and the unfolding geometry of the frost flower, the surfaces of the museum’s form fold to not only open up views, and connections to the park, but create various types of public and semi-private galleries.