Kotka Museum Center

The site of the museum is located in Kantasatama, the harbor area next to Kotka city center, characterized by large scale, scarce details and a trio of old harbor cranes as remnants of the old port function.

In our competition entry, the new museum building for the Maritime Museum and the Kymenlaakso Regional Museum rises directly from the asphalt field and acts as a new link between the city center and the harbor. The gallery spaces have been placed in the middle of the building and the supporting functions zoned around them. The heights of the gallery spaces have first been optimized according to objects on show in each of them after which the resulting mass has been “vacuum wrapped” into a metal skin.