GUGGENHEIM HELSINKI DESIGN COMPETITION’S WINNER REVEALED

A design submitted by Moreau Kusunoki Architectes, a firm founded in Paris in 2011, has won the Guggenheim Helsinki Design competition. The contest elicited 1,715 submissions from more than seventy-seven countries.

The winning environmentally conscious building includes nine low-lying spaces and a tower resembling a lighthouse, with a new pedestrian footbridge and harbor path connecting to the nearby Observatory Park. The building’s clad in locally sourced timber and glass.

Mark Wigley, professor and dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University—and chair of the competition’s eleven-member international jury—announced the results near the location of the proposed museum on Helsinki’s South Harbor. “The design is imbued with a sense of community and animation that matches the ambitions of the brief to honor both the people of Finland and the creation of a more responsive museum of the future,” he said. In keeping with European Union and Finnish procurement rules, all competition submissions remained strictly anonymous.

Moreau Kusunoki will receive a cash award of around $114,000, while awards of about $62,700 will be given to each of the five other finalist teams.