Rendering of the winning design for the proposed Guggenheim Helsinki (Image: © Moreau Kusunoki Architectes)

A last-ditch attempt to establish a Guggenheim museum in Finland with public money was definitively rejected by Helsinki City Council yesterday (30 November). Councillors voted 53 to 32 against the latest proposal—the third since 2011—to develop a satellite of the US-based Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in the Finnish capital. The revised plan had narrowly won approval from the Helsinki City Board on 21 November, following the Finnish government’s decision in September not to give €40m towards the €130m construction budget. The French-Japanese firm Moreau Kusunoki Architectes won the Guggenheim’s design competition in 2015.

At a time of austerity, objections to the Guggenheim Helsinki turned on its “excessive cost for the Finnish taxpayer” and its waterfront site, which council members said was “too valuable for the project”, according to a press statement. The new funding strategy increased the level of private support and cut the licence fee to the Guggenheim foundation by $10m. But it would have required Helsinki to pay up to €80m for the building and €15m to the Guggenheim Helsinki Supporting Foundation, as well as underwriting a €35m loan to a management company for the construction. A citizens’ petition criticised the proposal as “filled with major budgeting flaws and great risks” and a “misuse of public funds” at the behest of a private institution. 

Richard Armstrong, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation in New York, described the decision as “a reaction against globalism” in an interview with the New York Times. He said that the Guggenheim would seek support from private funders in Finland but that it was “unlikely” to pursue the project further. “We are disappointed that the Helsinki City Council has decided not to allocate funds for the proposed Guggenheim Helsinki museum, in effect bringing this project to a close,” the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation says in a statement.