Serlachius Museum Gösta

As you could expect, being one of the 570 teams that were involved in the Serlachius Museum extension competition, we were not the winners. Not even being one of the selected, there were around ten, or at least seeing one image of our project in the minutes, makes it maybe a bit more dissappointed, but at least we congratulate for the architecture itself, if we do not appear in any selection must be because the level was really high, and consecuently, the winner project superb.

Here we will try to make an analysis, subjective of course because we will try to know what we did wrong and in which aspects we did right, comparing it with the jury criteria, but trying to be objective in evaluating the strong and weak points of the winners, in order to begin an architectonic debate that we hope you will continue.

For those who do not know anything about the competition, here you can read the backgrounds and objectives explained in the programme. As a short explanation, the objective of the competition was to design a extension for the Serlachius Museum......

A competition with 570 entries is a luxury, even more if you are a witness and not a competitor of course, for debating about architecture. This competition had one exceptional aspect compared to others, that was the freedom given to choose a location for the extension, maybe the first decision you had to face in the project. From the minutes you can also notice that was the first criteria to evaluate the entries, being in our opinion not a reason to exclude any of them, though. In general, the entries formed mainly five groups regarding the location of the extension: in the west side, in the north, in the west, in the south and in the island, by better choice order. Having the main connection to the city from the east and gardens in the south, placing the extension in the west makes the Manor keep its predominant position and character, as well as allows to maintain the gardens and the views towards the lake behing them. The other locations did not accomplish one of this points. The possibility of place the extension in the island was a curious situation, it appears that just because it was said in the programme that you “could” place the new building in the island, you should seriously think about it. But the reality, as it is quoted by the jury, is that this option made a lot of problems to be solve, instead of solving the problems that were already there.

In general, the jury has been quite conservative regarding the relationship between the extension and the actual building, the Manor, giving more value to those proposals who were really sensitive with it and with the gardens behind it, and taking a character of really “extension” toward the Manor, treating it as a construction with a almost piece of art character.

The competition area is extensive, and there seem to be many alternatives for the location of new buildings. However, when the existing values are taken into account, the range is reduced. When one approaches the area from the east, the Joenniemi manor and its surrounding garden form an elegant sculptural entity: the main building and the trees around it can be seen as the background for an open lawn area. This view, as well as the view to the south-west toward the lake, should not be blocked with new construction.

But, regarding the shape of the new building, it has been quite contemporary, without falling in a void modernism.