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IGANGVÆRENDE FORSKNINGSPROJEKTER ● NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2009 ● 2, S. 130-139

The Role of Art Museums – the Finnish case

MARJA-LIISA RÖNKKÖ*

Abstract: This article is one part of an ongoing process to collect the entire history of Finnish Museums to be published in 2010. It has it roots in my dissertation1 about our art museums’ buildings. The final presentation will widen to consist of all kinds of museum buildings and also reflect on relationships between architectu- re, collections and exhibition design. Unlike many European countries in the first decades of the nineteenth century, – then a Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire – did not posses the basic infrastructure of the art world, such as public col- lections, an art academy or organized trade in works of art. The field of art began to take shape, in practice, around the Finnish Art Society, which was founded in 1846. 2 It was at first a kind of public collector in addition to the University, founded in 1640. The art museum sector was a forerunner in the museum field and it also created both the classical and modern prototypes for the ideal museum building in Finland. Key words: Art museum, modern museum, political museum, Acropolis, Al- var Aalto, “white cube”.

The Finnish society aimed to present the nar- tage became a core theme, involving as it did rative of art as fully as possible, and thus asso- the role and survival of the culture and identi- ciated itself with the prevailing Hegelian tra- ty of Europe in the world. The special role of dition of narrative construction that was cha- museums in maintaining the cultural heritage racteristic of German museums in particular, was also noted. In this connection, the Nordic and it was inspired by a strong Enlightenment Council of Ministers made a surprising disco- ideology. The societies of fine and applied arts very in 1993: the word museum was not men- got their permanent premises in 1887 in the tioned once in its recently approved ten-year , which also was one of the first mu- plan. Only indirect reference to museums seum buildings in Finland. Today, the number could be inferred in certain connections, for of museums dedicated to art, architecture and example under the headings of education and design is around 80. the arts. The Council of Ministers appointed a When the integration of Europe began to team of experts to study the contemporary achieve concrete forms in 1990s, cultural heri- role of museums, upon whose recommenda- 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 131

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The Ateneum Art Museum, . Architect Theodor Höijer, 1887. Photo: Marja-Liisa Rönkkö.

tion a permanent museum committee was es- passed on through selection, thesauration, pre- tablished. It appears that the role and status of sentation and communication as a cultural museums have since then been taken for gran- image. ted in the Nordic countries, where the mo- In Finland, professional museum work is dern type of museum evolved and where one half a century younger than in central Europe of the world’s oldest international organiza- – 140 years old to be exact, if we take the tions in the field, the Scandinavian Museums country’s first art museum curator Berndt Association, was founded in 1915. Otto Schauman (curator of the society’s col- Broader discussion on the cultural heritage lection 1869-87) as the starting point. Here, is associated with concerns over the musealiza- too, the early stages were associated with aca- tion of Europe being made into one large out- demic instruction in the culture of antiquity, door museum. The term cultural heritage re- aesthetics and classical languages and literatu- fers to reality that has achieved museum status re in the 1830s-1850s. Suomen Ihannes-Yhistys and quality. This musealization, however, does (the Finnish Art Society) accepted artists and not appear to involve a naturally formed heri- writers as members and also became the ker- tage. Rather, it is an explicit legacy, created and nel of the art museum institution in Finland. 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 132

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The Viipuri Art Museum, now in Russia, is a veritable Acropolis, a masterpiece in the Nordic classicism. Architect Uno Ullberg, 1930. Photo: The Museum of Finnish Architecture / Roos.

The central art museums of the Nordic industrialization and modernization. Since countries were established around the same then, there has been continuous talk about time in the late nineteenth century. Already at the unity of architecture, visual arts and ap- that stage there was talk about the outmoded plied art, and in general terms of a more inte- nature of the museums, the tiredness of the grated and synthesis-oriented ideal for mu- public with the museums, in a phenomenon seums, although the tendency of classification called museum fatigue, and the need for re- and specialization inherent to the museum in- form in this field. Despite the wishes of Fre- stitution has been so prominent until now drik Cygnaeus (1807-1881), the first Profes- that, for example, recent and contemporary art sor of Aesthetics at the , are kept apart from the history of art. Finland did not come to have a traditional The year 1930 can be taken as a turning academy of fine arts but rather a palace of art point for the museum of the modernist era. It and industry, which was the idea of Carl Gus- was preceded in the 1910s and 1920s by dis- taf Estlander (1834-1910), the successor to cussion – in Finland also – of the ideal mu- Cygnaeus as professor. This was more closely seum and the special nature and position of suited to the needs of a society on the path of art museums. In his 1920 pamphlet Nya mu- 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 133

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seer (New Museums), the Swedish art histo- 133 rian Gregor Paulsson spoke of the “quality museum” and noted that the task of the art museum is to foster the tastes of the masses. In Finland, the architect Gustaf Strengell (1878- 1937) had renewed the exhibitions of the Mu- seum of Applied Arts in 1912 and the Ate- neum in 1915 in this spirit. The year 1930 saw the completion of the Viipuri Art Mu- seum, the pinnacle of contemporary elegance and a veritable Acropolis. A fundamental international achievement was the founding in 1929 of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. (MoMA) new building in Manhattan, which was completed in 1939. The fostering of tastes continued with marked emphasis un- til the 1950s, when a popular education sec- tion on the side of Ateneum was established by the foundation of the Fine Arts Academy of Finland. The most marked developments in Finnish museums took place in the period from the 1960s to the 1980s. Before the Second World The Viipuri Art Museum is returning back to its origi- War, there had been half a dozen museums of nal purpose, now as a department of the State Hermita- ge Museum of Russia. The newspaper Hufvudstadsbla- art in Finland, and only a dozen or so in the det, 3 Nov. 2007. 1950s, so the biggest growth has happened af- ter the war. The “Big Bang” in terms of Fin- nish museums, whose results are only now 1998. This was the “plaza of all opportuniti- emerging, took place around. 1970, at about es”, as envisioned at the time. the same time as the visual arts adopted the The first stage of the profession, the foun- term post-modern from literature. In architec- ding of museums until the 1920s, had a scho- ture, change was expressed in the transparent larly emphasis. In the second formative, stage, glass pavilion of the Neue Nationalgalerie in committed academics with a wide range of Berlin, which again sought a total revision of skills took control of the museums. These in- the museum concept. In Finland, the most cluded women. Throughout the period of important debate on museum policy and rela- change from the 1960s to the present day, the ted philosophy lasted from the mid-1960s to professionals of museum work have been re- the middle of the 1970s. The ideal laid down formers and specialists. The fourth genera- in these exchanges of opinion was realized to tion, which has now taken on the work, is the full in Kiasma, the new museum of con- working with the challenges of the new mil- temporary art opened in Helsinki in May lennium and the information society. 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 134

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Alvar Aaltos proposal for the Tallinn Art Museum in 1937 did not win, but became a model for museums in Finland. Published in the magazine Arkkitehti 3/1937.

In the art museums, the historical course of fact that is reflected in current discourse. The development was such that the executive posi- so-called museum professionals have had to tions went to academics from the very begin- establish their own place in a field previously ning. It has been customary until the 1990s dominated by scholars and artists. Museum for the central museum to be headed by a per- work today is based above all on experience son with a doctorate on an important theme and intuition; the educational basis for it has or figure in the history of Finnish art. On the been until lately relatively limited. other hand, until the 1960s Finland’s other art Since the nineteenth century, a special fea- museums were generally headed by artists, ture of Finnish culture has been the participa- and sometimes by architects. The country’s art tion, at least nominally, of key figures in go- museums have only had their first or second vernment administration in the societies, as- professionally trained museum directors, a sociations and other organs furthering cultu- 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 135

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The Museum of Central Finland (1961, on the right) and the Alvar Aalto Museum (1973) in Jyväskylä were designed by Aalto himself, the gallery view is from Aalto Museum. Photos: Marja-Liisa Rönkkö.

ral pursuits in Finland on behalf of the state the executives of the Helsinki city administra- and with its support. In the nineteenth centu- tion and the prime minister himself were ry, Tsar Alexander II purchased and donated drawn into a heated debate about the museu- the most significant private art collection in m’s location. In connection with the munici- Finland to serve as the nest egg of the national pal museums, a reflection of this attitude can gallery. Professor and Senator Leo Mechelin, be seen in the marked commitment of local who was also chairman of Helsinki’s first city city administration to municipal art museum council, saw it as a point of honour to influen- projects. ce the imposing exterior architecture of the If we accept the definition that a collection Ateneum building. Mechelin was also chair- becomes a museum when it is regularly open man of the Fine Arts Society during the years to the public, premises suitable for exhibition of Russian oppression around the turn of the use are indispensable in creating a museum. nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Julius Ai- The majority of museums have been housed lio (1897-1933), head of the Department of in old buildings. Finland’s first real art mu- Prehistory of the National Museum of Fin- seum buildings date from 1887, 1904 and land, was not only the first chairman of the 1930, but most have been built since 1960. Finnish Museums Association, but also Mi- The most recent art museum architecture in nister of Education as a member of the Social particular communicates the new position of Democratic Party. Marshal C.G. Mannerheim museums as generators and barometers of cul- appointed the painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela to ture. be his personal aide-de-camp in 1919. When The relationships between architecture and the Kiasma museum was under construction, art on the one hand, and the museum institu- 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 136

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The museum dedicated to sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen in was the first art museum built after the Second Word War. Architects Irma and Matti Aaltonen, 1967. Photo: Marja-Liisa Rönkkö.

tion on the other, have been much written In the period 1960 to 1990, six independent about and discussed in the twentieth century. art museum buildings had appeared, ten had Art museums are an interesting subject for de- been accommodated in different cultural and sign precisely because of their almost unclassi- commercial centres, and half a dozen old mu- fiable, unconventional and flexible nature. seum buildings were extended with new wing The design of a museum building can easily buildings. The six new art museums are, in ad- be given as a final assignment for students and dition to the above-mentioned Alvar Aalto Mu- may also form a building block in the plan- seum, the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum in Turku ning of larger cultural centres, as if it were an (1967, architects Irma and Matti Aaltonen), addition or a culmination. the Helsinki City Art Museum (1976, architect In Finland, it has become clear that the spirit Tero Aaltonen), the Sara Hildén Art Museum in of the architect Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) hangs Tampere (1979, architects Asko Rasinperä / over Finnish museums. He was already intere- Pekka Ilveskoski), the Aine Museum in Tornio sted in museum architecture in the 1920s and (1986, architect Matti Porkka) and the Saarij- participated in museum design competitions ärvi Museum (1989, architects Laila Niemioja / from the 1930s on. He also designed the first Heikki Uusitalo). These museums are linked Finnish museum to be built after the Second by their similar origins. The guiding impulse World War – the Museum of Central Finland was a collection bequeathed to the city in ques- in Jyväskylä in 1961. Aalto designed a total of tion by significant local artist or patron, for ten museum buildings, of which three were bu- which the city then built a home and agreed to ilt. In addition to the one just mentioned, he pay for its running costs. These museums are also designed the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväs- small, 1,000-2,500 square metres in area, with kylä (1973) and Aalborg Art Museum in Den- exhibition spaces varying between 325 and mark (1958-1973). Aalto had an active interest 1,500 square metres. All six white buildings re- in visual art and even painted as a hobby. He present traditional Modernism, and the oldest was particularly interested in traditional Fin- pure Functionalism. The newer ones are com- nish folk buildings. binations of “correct” and “good” elements 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 137

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trawled from important foreign museums. To- power. Nevertheless, art museums do have the 137 gether, these buildings form an archetype of the character of public buildings, and they do sha- Finnish art museum. re a characteristic language. The modelling of When examining the hierarchical position exterior architecture, the arrangement of solid of art museum buildings in the urban structu- and windowed facades, textures (white brick, re, together with the prestige of the institution marble, and with Aalto also porcelain strips) they represent given substance in the form of a and entrée areas, the junctures of indoor and building, we find that the role of the art mu- outdoor space, staircases, and above all roof seum in Finland has been somewhat reserved structures that deliver lighting from above while at the same time, however, searching for underline the character of different spaces. an independent identity. Before Kiasma, there With art museums there was a greater op- was no desire to use art as an instrument of portunity than normal to find an individual

The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki. Architect Steven Holl, 1998. Photo: The Finnish National Gallery: the Central Art Archives / Ari Thiel. 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 138

MARJA-LIISA RÖNKKÖ

138 language, because there were few external to in connection with every museum project. pressures. Art museums still did not have a And further south there is the Fondation Ma- special status in the realm of social values nor eght on the French Riviera, which Finnish ar- did they have a precisely defined character. An tists and patrons have enjoyed since the early out-of the-way site did not require the sur- eighteenth century. rounding architecture to be taken account nor In spite of the modest and “local” procedu- were architectural competitions organised. res, Finland’s new art museum buildings com- Outside the systems of social control, art mu- municate that they belong to an international seums’ wish to remain independent as separa- family. They create an impression of how an art te institutions was fulfilled and the client’s re- museum should look, they are like small pieces quirement to create a building as a customised in an universal art space, which helps people to work, in other words “home” for a particular identify art at an early stage. The museums sha- collection, became the most important influ- re an intimate atmosphere and a close connec- ence on the design. tion with the surrounding cultural landscape. Curators and architects have had similar Low relief, asymmetry and adaptation to the opinions of the character of the exhibition natural terrain, as well as white colouring and spaces, the so-called “white cubes”. The exte- sculpture park endeavours, easily lead to those rior appearance simply has not interested the ideals which were very open and prominent in museum crowd; it has been left to the atten- the discussion of their time. tion of patrons, decision-makers and archi- Aalto’s design for the Tallinn Art Museum tects. Moreover, the users of the museum sim- in 1937 was accepted as a realistic model in ply have had no influence on the choice of lo- Finland. The design did not win, nor was the cation. Even so, it is apparent that behind winning proposal ever built.3 The design was, both the finding of a museum location and however, immediately presented in architectu- the architectural elements there is a collective ral journals and it came up in all Finnish dis- understanding of the kind of environment in cussions of art museum architecture, the latest which a museum should be situated and of being in 1998. Aalto’s proposal, which be- what it should communicate. An analysis of longs to the same generation of Viipuri Libra- this matter reveals that Ancient Greece and si- ry (1935) and the pavilion for the Paris Worl- tes of worship of the Muses lie behind these d’s Fair (1937), has become the ideal Finnish solutions, even though direct references to the museum. Acropolis are seldom found. Still, as natural as it would be, I do not re- Water is a pervasive element in the location gard Pierre Bourdieu as my biggest guiding star, of Finnish art museums: the museums are typi- but his concept of the homo academicus does hit cally situated by a lake, a river or the sea, just as the mark. Bourdieu’s analysis of the academic ancient villas and palaces were. The ideal Eur- world seeks to objectify the competition in pro- opean museum of the post-war period stands gress in this field. He uses the concept of the fi- by the two seas that delimit Europe, the Medi- eld instead of the generally used term profes- terranean and the Baltic. Not too far away from sion, which he regards as too vernacular and as Finland is the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, referring to the social subconscious of a rough- which in one way or another is always referred ly equally salaried group subscribing to a joint 209.qxp 01-12-2009 12:04 Side 139

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ethical set of rules. Bourdieu makes a clear dis- NOTES 139 tinction between the permanence of academic capital, based on the control of the means of re- 1. Marja-Liisa Rönkkö: Louvren ja Louisianan peril- plication, i.e. academic power lacking a scienti- liset – suomalainen taidemuseo (Heirs of the Louv- fic basis, and intellectual capital based on scho- re and the Louisiana – Finnish Art Museums). larly reputation. Present-day discussion and de- Dimensio 2. Valtion taidemuseon tieteellinen sar- bate in the museum field also revolves in this ja – Finnish National Gallery Research Series. sphere.4 Vammala 1999. The study by Bourdieu5 is special in the sen- 2. See also dissertation: Susanna Pettersson: Suomen se that it combines conventional research requi- Taideyhdistyksestä Ateneumiin – Fredrik Cygnaeus, ring scientific objectification with a perspective Carl Gustaf Estlander ja taidekokoelman roolit on the objectifying subject itself. It is a re- (From the Finnish Art Society to the Ateneum – minder of how the objectifying subject is also Fredrik Cygnaeus, Carl Gustaf Estlander and the objectified. I definitely agree with Bourdieu’s Roles of the Art Collection). Historiallisia Tutki- observation: “The sharpest and most cruelly muksia 240. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura / objectifying analyses are written with full Dimensio 6. Valtion taidemuseon tieteellinen sar- knowledge of the fact that many of the objects ja. Hämeenlinna 2008. concerned never come to think that the appa- 3. KUMU – Art Museum of Estonia was designed rent cruelty of this or that sentence hurts its by a Finnish architect after all: Pekka Vapaavuori writer no less. They regard as unnecessary cru- won the competition and the new museum was elty what in fact is only the recalling of things opened in 2006. to memory.” 4. Marja-Liisa Rönkkö: The Role of Museums. Form In my own research, however, objectifica- Function Finland. No 75-3/1999, pp 34-37. tion has the goal of finding a subject, or sub- 5. Pierre Bourdieu - Loïc J.D. Wacquant: Invitation jects. I want to break down the myth of mu- to Reflexive Sociology. The University of Chicago seum collections representing objective reality. Press, Chicago 1992. None of the objects and artefacts in a museum represents reality any more, but rather a speci- al world, the meta-reality maintained and che- *Marja-Liisa Rönkkö rished by museums. In addition to the fact PhD, Senior Lecturer in Museology that museum pieces have as their subjects their producers, makers and former owners and a specific history of their own, they will Address: University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu inevitably also have a special significance and 38 D, PL 59, 00014 Helsingin meaning provided by the nature of the mu- yliopisto, Finland seum in question, and its personnel in parti- cular, and bound to education and competen- E-mail: [email protected] ce. There is no reason to deny or avoid this, nor to be ashamed of it.