This year private art museums have been topical in Finland: Serlachius Museum Gösta's Pavilion was opened in Mänttä, Amos Andersson Art Museum is planning new premises in the centre of Helsinki, and the small Didrichsen Art Museum renovated its premises originally designed by Viljo Revell and reopened with an Edvard Munch exhibition. In the Finnish media, however, all this has been eclipsed by Guggenheim Helsinki.The issue presents the six competition finalists, with comments by a cityscape architect, the architect of the winning entry for the Helsinki Central Library, and two professors. The Guggenheim discussion continues also on a more general level. Art critics Heikki Kastemaa and Otso Kantokorpi, and researcher of urban culture Anja Kervanto Nevanlinna share ideas on the project as well as on surplus art and elitism. Rafaela Seppälä, Chair of the Guggenheim Helsinkiin association, on the other hand, writes in her column: "Building a museum should not be about egos, it should be about the flow of creativity in our society." The interplay of contemporary art, museum and space is looked at from another perspective in an article discussing Olafus Eliasson's art.Gösta's Pavilion brings new aspects to the Finnish tradition of wood construction. Already in the competition phase the idea of the Barcelona-based architect team was based on the use of wood, and a qualified local office was found to take care of the implementation phase design. The feature and reviewes of the new museum are given space in the issue. The roots of the story of Gösta's Pavilion go as far back as the late 19th century when Gösta Serlachius made his first art acquisitions. In her article, Head of Collections, Tarja Talvitie writes about the industrialist's hobby of collecting art and the seed of his collection. Cultural journalist Minna Joenniemi talks about the town of Mänttä awakening to be a city for art.
