Amos Rex: an underground museum in a building from the 1930s

19.10.2021 | Education

The Amos Rex Museum of Art in Helsinki (Finland) is a project that has revived a classic building from the 30s, the Lasipalatsi. This glass palace was designed for the Olympic Games (those of 1940) that finally, before the outbreak of the Second World War, would not be held until 1952. After the Olympic event, the building has remained standing up to nowadays. The JKMM architects have been the responsible for giving it a new look 'respecting its valuable interiors and details from the functionalist era of the 30s'.

The renovation of Lasipalatsi was careful in order to preserve the characteristics of the building. In this sense, JKMM has used materials and colours that are very faithful to the original design: wood, white colour and large windows that follow the classic Nordic lines, but with a more modern style.

One of the most emblematic pieces of the building is the Bio Rex, a cinema with almost 600 seats that has also been restored and that is responsible for the name of the new Museum, Amos 'Rex'.

Underground art

The restoration of the Lasipalatsi is only a small part of a larger project, which contemplated the creation of an underground museum. As Amos Rex director Kai Kartio explains, 'we didn't want to transform the building into an art centre,' but rather to support it. How was it achieved? Building under the old palace an underground gallery of up to 2,200 square meters that looks out in the form of concrete domes up to 10 meters high with huge windows.

This is how the museum enters the square and conquers pedestrians with this curious and photogenic architecture that has kept the original Lasipalatsi chimney in the centre of the square.

FAST Table in the museum

Art is much more than seeing a painting or a sculpture. Art has evolved and is also shown in the form of screenings, workshops and even exhibitions where the public can interact. Hence, the gallery has multipurpose spaces in which Sellex furniture has been installed, specifically the FAST Table (designed by Carlos Tíscar) in black and with a circular top.

The Sellex Fast Table at the Amos Rex Museum in Helsinki
By Sino Yu - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

As it is a removable table in which the legs and the frame are independent pieces, a wide range of possibilities opens up for multipurpose spaces thanks to the fact that an infinite number of table configurations can be created with a minimum stock. In addition, it allows you to optimize space to the maximum, by being able to easily disassemble it when it is not being used.

For Sellex, of course, it is an honour that our FAST Table is part of an artistic environment such as the Amos Rex Museum of Art.