The project plan for the New Museum of Architecture & Design is near complete. Funding decisions to be made based on the plan are expected during 2023. The Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Design Museum will merge at the beginning of 2024.

The project plan for the New Museum of Architecture & Design is near complete. Based on the plan, decisions on the funding of the project are scheduled to be made during 2023. The City of Helsinki and the State of Finland, together with a group of private foundations, have made conditional commitments to fund the founding of the new museum.

Due to additional studies on the financial model of the project, the funding decisions, which were originally scheduled for the spring of 2023, have been postponed until the autumn. Upon approval of the funding, a design competition for the new museum building will be launched during the autumn of 2023.

The current museums will merge in 2024

The merger of the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Design Museum is moving forward according to plan. The two foundations maintaining the museums will be merged at the beginning of 2024 into the Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design, which was established in 2022. However, the museums will continue to operate under their current names, and in their current premises for several years before the new museum building opens.

The Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Design Museum are currently preparing for next year’s merger by developing their operations towards joint services and exhibition programmes. Within the last year, new joint recruits have included Business Development Manager Hanna Mutanen, Customer Experience Manager Mari Sundell and Finance Coordinator Meri Elg. Their duties are divided between the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the Design Museum and the new museum project.

The latest reinforcement is Project Manager Erika Parvikoski, who joined the team at the beginning of March. Parvikoski works as a member of the project organisation for the New Museum of Architecture & Design. Her responsibilities include the administrative preparations for the museum merger.

A new national museum of architecture and design is coming to Helsinki, Finland. A newly established Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design is leading the process of composing a project plan on the concept and design of the new museum, the final funding decisions for which are expected during 2023. The new museum will merge the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Design Museum and their globally significant collections of Finnish architecture and design into one. A new museum building will be situated on Helsinki’s historic seafront, in the South Harbour’s Makasiiniranta district.