Amos Rex
Art museum buried beneath Lasipalatsi Square, whose domed skylights surface as walkable mounds.
Amos Rex opened in August 2018 in and beneath the functionalist Lasipalatsi, the Glass Palace built for the 1936 Olympic preparations by the young architects Viljo Revell, Niilo Kokko and Heimo Riihimäki. JKMM Architects excavated roughly 2,200 square metres of column-free exhibition space under the adjoining square and lit it with large domed skylights. The domes rise through the paving as sloping mounds that people walk and skate over, turning the museum roof into a public plaza on Mannerheimintie.
The museum continues the work of the Amos Anderson Art Museum, founded on the collection of the Swedish-speaking Finnish publisher and patron Amos Anderson, and its holdings include the Sigurd Frosterus Collection of early twentieth-century painting. Programming alternates between contemporary art, often digital or immersive, twentieth-century modernism and occasional antiquities. The restored Bio Rex cinema in the Lasipalatsi upper floor operates as a screening room and event hall alongside the underground galleries.
Highlights
- Column-free galleries dug beneath Lasipalatsi Square
- Domed skylights forming walkable mounds on the public plaza
- The 1936 functionalist Lasipalatsi and its restored Bio Rex cinema
- The Sigurd Frosterus Collection of early twentieth-century art
