Send your ideas to the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition now until September 2014

The Finnish city of Helsinki — a place with a rich architectural heritage — is opening itself to new ideas in the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition. Although the competition officially opened just today, it has already garnered plenty of interest.

The international ideas competition is a chance for the architecture community to contribute in experimenting with new urban environments and museum concepts fit for the current — and future — environment of Helsinki.

Stage One of the competition ends Sept. 10, 2014.

The aim of the architectural competition is to find an innovative, original and ecologically sustainable multidisciplinary museum building for the South Harbour in Helsinki. It should be sensitive to the historic waterfront setting and reflect a design informed by Nordic ideals, including openness and accessibility. The entries should adopt an approach to the current change in the Helsinki cityscape, where city waterfronts and former harbour areas have been released and are now developed as residential and recreational areas for the citizens of Helsinki. 

An eleven member jury chaired by Mark Wigley, professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, will meet in Helsinki and select six finalists from the submissions received during Stage One. The jury is composed of representatives of, among others, the City of Helsinki, the State of Finland, and the Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA). 

The six finalists will be announced in November 2014. The Stage Two of the competition will end in the spring of 2015 and the winner will be announced in June, 2015.

The City of Helsinki and the State of Finland are expected to deliberate on whether to proceed with the construction and development of the museum after the competition concludes.