Helsinki is a city of interiors. Due to its extreme climatic conditions, Helsinki’s civic society blossoms indoors. They form a robust network spaces that hosts and nurtures public life; interior public life.
31 Rooms, extends the network using the architectural technologies that construct Helsinki’s interior citizenry: i.e. walls, doors, windows, and the machinery that defines atmospheric conditions. While the new museum attaches to the network of existing conditions, leaves them undisturbed.
31 Rooms reuses the laminated wood structure of the existing Makasiini terminal to rebuild a wooden volume that follows the exact geometry of the original building. The rest of the massing respects the maximum height of the old terminal and reproduce its profile ensuring that the current views from the park and the adjacent buildings are preserved.
31 Rooms contains eight rooms of 20x20m, eighteen of 6.5x6.5m four of 10x10m and one of 40x100m. that offer an alternative notion of flexibility based on a rigid set of spatial conditions rather than temporal partitions. Over time, the rooms’ dimensions won’t change over time while the way they are used will.
31 Rooms Is bu9ild using Finnish Cross Laminated Timber Pannels and Greenhouse like EFTE roofs. Since energy loss grows exponentially with temperature difference each room of 31 Rooms is acclimatized independent, forming a thermal onion that optimizes climate areas according to levels of access. Yet Each room’s final climatic conditions include certain degree of negotiation between the institution and its visitors.
31 Roomsoms questions the climatic conventions that mediate each of the artistic categories mentioned before, including the hygrometric chart to the tool box of curatorial strategies.
31 Rooms represent a new model within the global Guggenheim constellation, offering an opportunity for the foundation to develop a museum of the future with radical, multidisciplinary approaches to engaging new audiences with culture at large. The Guggenheim Helsinki will become a curatorial innovation reference centre for the other Guggenheim museums.