space travellers' elegant finnish art museum honors collector sara hildén

space travellers proposes its design for the new sara hildén art museum to celebrate the industrial legacy of its site in tampere, finland. dubbed ‘sara hildén’s eye’ (S.H.E.), the museum is designed to stand as a landmark and a catalyst for multiple experiences. it’s a project that seeks elegance without losing a strong touch — it is massive, it is bold, and it is immediately recognizable. it strives to reach the beauty of the works of art that it will host after its completion while still paying a tribute to the memory of finnish art collector sara hildén.

visualizations by nube architetture | courtesy of space travellers

the space travellers-designed sara hildén museum will occupy the center of a broader and more complex landscape project. this strategy enhances the connection between the museum and the city. the whole area has a different striped pavement that underlines the exceptionality of the museum function placed there. finlayson street acts as the principal access to the building while the neighboring streets merge into the existing mobility strategy that will unfold during the very next years. the urban quality of the proposal is finally crystallized by a smooth ground recess that enables wilhelm von nottbeck park to penetrate inside the building, giving quality to the indoor space and strength to the whole urban concept.

space travellers roots the form and the DNA of its sara hildén museum in the industrial legacy of the plot. the formal exercise that gave birth to its final configuration starts from the extrusion of a typical old warehouse block that is then twisted to arrange it into something unexpected, something brave, and something with a strong identity. what originally was only horizontal, split into two pure geometry — a low-rise part in dialogue with the context and the origins of the city and a high-rise part, an allegorical eye that looks toward tampere’s future development.

the first section of the sara hildén art museum hosts the building’s core technical functions. these are placed on the ground floor to make them easily accessible and more efficient. underground is just partially hypogeum — here is programmed a large block of exhibition facilities, those that will ideally host sara hildén’s permanent collection. the temporary collection will be housed in the second taller section. this section of the building is the most iconic one. thanks to its height, visitors can benefit from an unobstructed view towards tampere’s beautiful landscape while enjoying the biggest works of art which are placed here because of the more generous height of the ceilings.

the identity of space travellers’ sara hildén art museum is split as its masses. the lower floor is divided into three different layers of transparency. the accesses and the foyer’s windows are as glazed and transparent as possible to suggest permeability and they open the museum to the city and the landscape. parts of the workshop and the exhibition facilities are covered with a perforated metal layer that provides control over the access of the natural light and acts as a transition material between the more opaque and the more transparent parts of the building. the strong lines of the structural system that allows the upper floors to fly over the street characterize the identity of the museum. lastly, a system of wooden slats covers the last façades and provides control over the natural light while introducing unique and warm atmosphere to the whole building.

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