Helsinki Music Centre

The Music Centre to be built on the shores of Töölö Bay in the city centre of Helsinki, will be a nationally and internationally important nexus for music, with activities that will boost the importance of music in society and underpin Finnish cutting-edge expertise and the national identity.

The Music Centre will give Helsinki an acoustically first-class concert hall as well as other facilities providing a wide range of musical experiences for people of all ages and a place to study music.

The main users of the Music Centre will be the Sibelius Academy, the Helsinki Philharmonic and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Music Centre's premises will also be used by visiting musical ensembles and performers.

The Helsinki Music Centre will be built with an approximately 1,700-place concert hall, five smaller halls (with 200 - 500 seats per hall), a restaurant and club facilities, and a music library for the Sibelius Academy. The building will also have teaching and rehearsal facilities. The Music Centre will have a net area of roughly 25,000 square metres (about 30,000 gross square metres).

The cost estimate for the Music Centre (at 2007 prices) is 108 million euros, together with 20 million euros for the equipments.

Timetable
According to plans, construction will begin at the end of 2007 and the Music Centre will be completed at the end of 2010. At present, construction design and other preparatory action are under way.

The designers
The State of Finland, the City of Helsinki and the Finnish Broadcasting Company held a two-stage international architecture competition for the design of the Helsinki Music Centre, which was won by an entry entitled "a mezza voce" (architects Ola Laiho, Mikko Pulkkinen, Marko Kivistö) in 2000.

Main and architect design:
LPR-arkkitehdit Oy/Marko Kivistö, Ola Laiho, Mikko Pulkkinen.
Acoustical design:
Nagata Acoustics Inc./Yasuhisa Toyota.
www.musiikkitalo.fi