Serlachius Museum Goesta Extension (Finland)

Design Competition 2011

In cooperation with Stefan Apitz

Site

The Joenniemi Manor, which accommodates the Serlachius art collection, is an outstanding ensemble of historical buildings with beautiful landscape surroundings. The design of our extension aims to accentuate and strengthen this unique character but also to make it stand out as a new landmark building at the same time. We intend to keep the eastern part of the park intact, to preserve its beautiful appearance and the views it offers. In order to do so, we have placed the extension on the western side of the Manor, extending towards the lake. The new foyer and the northern facade of the manor define an enclosed square that is connected to the parking area and create a prominent assembly point for the museum’s visitors. The location of the museum’s main entrance is visible from the axis road connecting the parking area. This allows the visitors to find the entrance of the museum easily. To ensure the unity of the park, our building can be traversed via the foyer on the northern and southern side of the Manor, and over the restaurant’s terrace. In order to connect the lakeside restaurant better, an attractive pathway along the lake’s shore will lead visitors from the parking area to the new restaurant. We will also restore the historical alley from the Manor to the Island. The visitors can enter the island over the re-built bridge and walk around its compelling shore on a new circular path. The new sauna lounge is also situated on the island.

Exterior

The shape of the extension’s dramatic roof is derived from that of the Manor’s and the yard buildings` roofs. The shape is adapted into a sculptural paper-like folded roof, which extends from the assembly hall to the lakeside restaurant and expresses movement through the museum as well as through the park. Each single roof is defined by the interior spaces. As a result, every room has its own saddle roof. The volumes of the museum are shifted in relation to each other in order to merge the building with the surrounding landscape. The facade consists of a slightly shiny black vertical timber cladding and flush windows. The homogeneous structure of the cladding combines the sequence of single houses and gives the extension a sculptural presence. The surrounding is lightly reflected in the shiny surfaces of the timber and the large windows. The dark timber skin also provides an exciting contrast to the white and clean interior of the museum.

Interior

The linear building instinctively guides the visitor from the entrance square to the restaurant, with its striking view over the lake. On this route the visitor can experience the artworks as well as the beauty of the landscape. The aim of our design is to translate this route into an adequate architectural language. As a consequence our interior has a very open design that consistently establishes spatial relationships not only to the exterior, but also to the museum’s different interior spaces. The museum can be entered through the main foyer, the circulation foyer and the restaurant. The main foyer is linked to the levelfloored assembly hall in the “head” of the building. All rooms for the administration and education purposes are located above the foyer. An atrium and open gallery, functioning as the library, define a wide-open space, which allows skylights to bring daylight into the foyer. The design offers various exciting routes through the exhibition spaces. The central stairs, which clearly divide the foyer from the exhibition spaces, function as the central vertical link to all floors. They lead the visitors down to the travelling exhibitions, up to the collections or straight to the restaurant. The path to the restaurant is designed as an extended foyer, which allows the visitor to access the restaurant without buying a ticket. This path has a large window facing the park to one side, and looks onto the big travelling exhibitions room, positioned 5 metres below. This public gallery functions as the visual tie between the park and the inner life of the museum. The collection rooms are located on the upper level. The classical design of the sequence of small rooms offers perfect conditions for the display of paintings. As the collection rooms are shifted in relation to each other they seem to hang as single houses in the big exhibition space and over the public gallery, recreating the pattern of saddle-roofed houses inside of the building. The sequence of the collection rooms create voids inbetween to generously provide the big rectangular column-free exhibitions room with daylight from the skylights. All three floors are visually interconnected. The Manor can be reached from the foyer and the collection rooms on the second floor, integrating it into the routes leading through the new museum. In addition to the variety of routes offered through the museum, the separate floors make it possible to close exhibition spaces without interrupting access to the collections and the restaurant. The restaurant has a big panoramic opening to the lake that can be completely opened in the summer. The storage facilities are located below the foyer on the same level as the travelling exhibitions space. This allows a practical and quick transportation of the artworks from the storage to the exhibition space. The artworks will be delivered through the handling room at the back (west side of the building). An adjacent freight elevator can transfer the works quickly to the storage space and all other levels. The preparation room and the archive are located next to the storage. A corridor beneath the public gallery connects the freight elevator with the kitchen, supplying the restaurant with goods from the back of the building.