It is only a model for now, but the new Guggenheim Museum for Helsinki has already kicked off a scrap over the 130-million-euro project’s costs, location, and much more.

But besides the construction costs there is an additional license fee of more than 20 million euros to be paid to the Guggenheim foundation, for whom Helsinki has reserved a prized lot in the city’s harbour for the museum.

Dr. Kaarin Taipale is an urban researcher and a local politician. Like many here, she resents public funds handed over to a private American corporation, and says the money could be better spent.

“It’s extremely unfair, because the city will be paying for everything. Not only the construction of the building, but of course, giving this very precious site away for free and paying for all the costs, personnel and maintenance of the building.

This would be a minimum seven million euros annually onto the city budget at a time when we are cutting from everything else,” she says.

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Critics founded Next Helsinki masterminded by American architectural critic Michael Sorkin.

An ‘anti-competition’ invited architects, urban planners, landscape architects, artists, environmentalists, students, activists, poets, even politicians to submit counter-proposals for the site – anything but another Guggenheim.