A museum reshapes the center of Helsinki

A museum revitalizes a declining urban area and boosts the tourism economy. It reemerges as the core spirit sculpting the cityscape. It combines a new underground exhibition world with the restored 1930s Lasipalatsi building, transforming an iconic modernist landmark into a gateway to a contemporary cultural center. The museum’s signature feature is its series of concrete domes that raise the ground into an interesting, undulating terrain. These arched structures create vast column-free galleries below while drawing daylight down through circular skylights, outlining the tranquil cityscape above. On the surface, they become a public square with a strong identity, a place where architecture, landscape, and everyday life blend together. Amos Rex is a study in adaptive reuse, technical precision, and urban imagination, demonstrating how a museum can be both an immersive indoor world and an active urban site with terrain design.