The Finnish Association of Architects won’t play a lead role in the competition to select a design for the proposed Helsinki Guggenheim art museum, although it is usually a key player in Finland’s major architectural projects. The competition’s main organiser will be the US-based Guggenheim Foundation.
The city of Helsinki has decided to award additional funding to the tune of 50,000 euros to the newly-formed art organisation known as Checkpoint Helsinki. The art movement was first established in opposition to proposals for a Guggenheim art museum in Helsinki.1
The Swedish Cultural Foundation is one of the major funders of culture in Finland, distributing around 33 million euros in grants each year. The foundation’s goal is to promote Finnish-Swedish culture, and according to Sevón that is the main problem with the plan to support the Guggenheim.
Hufvudstadsbladet reported on Friday that the foundation justified its decision to reserve half a million euros for the project by saying it would help Finnish-Swedish architects to compete and achieve international recognition for their work. Sevón was unimpressed by that rationale.
"With this kind of motivation one could support anything," said the judge.
Sevón said that it was doubtful the Guggenheim competition would comply with the foundation’s rules as there were no guarantees it would be won by someone from the Finnish-Swedish minority. Swedish speakers in Finland make up around 5.4 percent of the population.
Foundations and associations are overseen by the patent and registration office, and Sevón says they are unlikely to intervene unless a decision involved gross abuse of an organisation’s funds. If they did, the foundation could simply reverse its decision.
The foundation’s director Leif Jakobsson declined a television or radio interview with Yle’s Swedish-language service, but said by telephone that his board had considered the fund’s rules and that certain conditions were attached to the possible funding.2