MUSEUM IN MYLLYTULLI
The new building joins an existing historic power station to form a new museum and science center in the Myllytulli area in Oulu city center. The building hosts exhibition spaces for a museum of local history, exhibition spaces for a science center, an immersive and interactive projection space, a restaurant, and workshop and office spaces for both employees and the public. These spaces are distributed between the newly built extension and the old power station.
The driving ambition of the design was to develop and shape meaningful urban outdoor spaces through the construction of a new museum complex. The museum center operates as part of the urban fabric and does not present itself as an independently standing monument, but rather as a participant in the shared life of the city. The juxtaposition of the new building volumes takes into account the natural directions from which one approaches the site, the need for an extensive parking area serving the building, and the existing housing blocks surrounding the site. A new, calm, and tranquil museum plaza is created where the extension meets the old power station.
The extension consists of two enclosed brick volumes, an open circulation loggia connecting them to the existing power station, and a new tower anchoring the point of coordination shift between the volumes. The brick volumes contain flexible and ever-changing exhibition spaces, while the loggia is architecturally more specific and binds the ensemble together. The existing power station becomes a natural and vital part of the new whole, inhabited by new public functions. The past is not seen as a burden or something to be enclosed within a glass cabinet, but as something to grow from and connect to, thus adding to the experience of everyday life.
The design of the building is based on an open architecture competition held in 2022.
