Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland by Architect Steven Holl

Kiasma is a contemporary art museum that is located in Mannerheimintie in Helsinki, Finland. Its name, denoted Kiasma, is Finnish for chiasma, which alludes to the basic conceptual idea of Steven Holl, its architect. It displays the fashionable art collection of the Finnish Art Gallery, which was founded in 1990 with the sole purpose of making contemporary art better known while also strengthening its status. Essentially, the architect Steven Holls design was selected from 516 competitors from an architectural design competition that was meant to design the contemporary art museum in the city. After the selection of Holls design, Kiasma construction commenced in 1996, and the museum was opened in May 1998. It is one of the most attraction sites in the city with its magnificent design, and between 2011 and 2013, it attracted between 160,000 and 180,000 visitors on a daily basis. However, it was closed so that it could be repaired in September 2014 but resumed operations in the Spring of 2015. It has an important impact on artists because it includes collections of over 4,000 artists, including Nicolas Berchem, Raimo Kanerva, Anders Gustaf, and Antonio Rotta among others.

The museum is a typological form, which is expressed via a force evident in the synthesis of landscape and building. The America architect, Steven Holl, engaged various local determinants, as well as typological precedents for creating the building named Kiasma, or rather, chiasma, an intersection, especially in medicine, a crossing of the optic nerves located at the base of the brain. Importantly, it should be noted that chiasma is a scientific term that refers to the intersection of filaments, such as optic nerves, or the exchange of genetic material between two chromosomes, particularly in the field of genetics. Holl viewed the site as a basic confluence of a variety of city grids where the museum is a mass that intertwines the geometry of the landscape and the city, which subsequently corresponds to the Toolo Bay. For this reason, the form of the building engages landscape and water via a stream that is seen to permeate the form of the exterior passageway. Also, from the north end, the patinated zinc oxide roof is seen to wrap across the three storey program, and twists with the force of Holls hand and entangles with a modernist steel box. Holl explained it as a topological transformation as an interior mystery and exterior horizon, providing an appearance similar to hands clasping each other, thereby forming the architectural equivalent of a public invitation. For this reason, the form of the building conveys a message that all are welcome. The building, as such, has a strong impact in that the design highlights a welcoming posture to all guests. For this reason, that is why I visited the museum, to gain an insight of the art collections, as well as have a closer look at the architectural masterpiece Holl provided.

The union of the two seemingly clasping hands results in a post-modern typology that makes reference to a classical (related to importance of contextual architecture, such as the Eliel Saarinens Helsinki station), the modernist expression of function (the circulation elements in plan reflect orientation of exterior walls and building form), as well as the integration of technological material and shape found in contemporary designs. According to Thompson (1970), the building, as a product of forces that act on the matter, is a manifestation of physical energy, which highlights a form of that represents a summation of these forces. In fact, as the architecture bends into a plan and section along the north-south axis, edges appear at the end of the space, which is significantly sharp, distinct breaks forming the visible vectors that constituting the buildings form. As Thompson (1970) highlights, it is a symbol for direction and magnitude of an action about the symbol of a material thing. While the building is integral to the design parameters that constitute the chiasma, axes that cross, as well as a twisting form representative of public invitation, it still adapts to full representation of forces, as well as pervades the landscape, thereby softening the edges. In consequence, this results in greater credence to exterior elements of form, integration of water, and extends the architecture south towards the city. The form of the building better articulates the west facade, which is the public face, for the sole purpose to better communicate Holls intent in the conformation of art, architecture, as well as culture, which are integral parts of the landscape and the city. In fact, the twisting and cascading form better engages the ground level rather than just being an elevated roof condition. Importantly, it can be derived that the form of the museum represents a fusion between two surfaces and the effect that results can be presented as an integrative public experience. Furthermore, it successfully approaches the vernacular of the locals, through the word Kiasma, thereby recognizing the significance of water, as well as responding to a meeting of urban thoroughfares. In fact, the form is topological, particularly on the solid roof, and turns from facade facing the bay and to sloping and also defines a confluence of mass.

The buildings body imposes subjective experience in architecture, thereby generating different reactions. It highlights how Holl strived to intervene the space and subsequently improve it. In his book, urbanisms: working with doubt, Holl (2009) writes about an architects purpose in creating phenomenological characteristics, which subsequently determine the quality of a setting, and this is related to perception as the manner in which a body in space is understood dependent on relational subjectivity. In fact, the exterior conditions of the museum are poetic in their differentiation and geometric continuity. The edges and lines are vectors that move through a spatial construct. Besides, the architecture defines space limits with a clean massing. The subjective experience of the buildings body can be transformable through habitation, just as in Vidlers anecdote on Councilor Krespel, from Unhomely Homes would reflect (Viedler, 1987).

Besides, the manner in which the building influences phenomenological characteristics is similar to that of Freuds (1959) discussion in his paper, Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming. Freud (1959) credits Holl for his creative process and affording liberation of tension in our minds. Through the buildings body, Holl can be referred to as the poet, presenting the buildings function and form and sets a body via a series of imagined graduating volumes, which sets a body that inclines to the enclosing space. Therefore, Holl aimed at affecting the realization of bodies in space, and through his proposition to extend the Toolo Bay, and to integrate water and architecture, he created a bodily extension (Holl, 2009). In effect, the architecture references Merleu-Pontys seminal argument for the blind man and his cane, which acts as a phenomenological extension of the spatial construct of the body (Gallagher, 2010). When Holl extended the bay, he subsequently extended the architectural body, which Merleu-Ponty calls it a bodily auxiliary, which is an extension of the bodily synthesis. In effect, that generates a relationship between the tactile and visual portions of the body as the building touches and sees the bay. It subsequently creates symbiosis. These are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The architecture becomes the generator for phenomenology in the bodys spatial construct. (Holl, n.d)

In addition, the Kiasma is also relevant to an essay made by Peter Eisenmann (1992), which deals with vision of the body, and how it could be affected vision, as well as the phenomenal characteristics that are generated via the space folding, or in more literary way, which form of the body provides a definition of the spatial characteristics and relationships. The Kiasma offers some examples of this, and in particular, the interior gallery conditions. In fact, the galleries fold the surrounding space in a gentle yet curvilinear fashion and have openings to the daylight above, which affects the surrounding space with a significantly ephemeral quality (Eiseman, 1992). Also, the main circulation axis of the gallery bends around the corners at a slight degree, but at the same time leaves negligible portions of detail out of view, which is enough to create a mystery. In effect, this makes it particularly attractive to visitors. According to Eisenmann (1992), the folded space subsequently engages in the subjectivity, from effective to affective, as shown below:

Figure 2: Kiasma Gallery, Folding Space: The body is affected by the folding and realization of the subjective. (Holl, 2009)

The folding also changes the traditional space of vision, which is considered as effective, functions, it frames and also is meaningful and aesthetic. It also constitutes the affective and effective space. In fact, folding can be considered as an affective space that concerns aspects that are not subsequently associated with the effective, more than function and reason. Holls folding spaces for Kiasma are affective and informs the body of spatial quality and volume, which Eisenmann (1992) designates that as looking back. The folds also reach beyond d the rationalization of space, meaning that the phenomenal and experiential qualities highlighted by Holl in Kiasma cannot go unnoticed. From careful analysis of the formed space, it can be deduced that the body relationships was Holls priority, and makes this clear in his writings by asserting that if modern medicine has acknowledged the psyches power as a physical health factor, then urban planners should realize phenomenal and experiential power of cities cannot be totally rationalized and thus, should be studied from a subjective point of view. The views are essentially embedded in his architectural design of Kiasma as it generates phenomenological qualities that people can appreciate.

The technique Holl (2009) used in the floor plan a highlights the major organizing mass elements as extruded volumes which significantly inform the circulation of agents within the architecture. From Figure 2, the elements are seen as solids that leave the interstitial space to become populated by the agents of circulation. These agents are tightly controlled within the volumes, but at the ends, they freely disperse. They are also affected by the narrowing and opening of the volume and aggregate effectively. As space opens upwards, they are permitted to rise vertically, as shown in the figure below:

Figure 3: Elements saw as solids, leaving the interstitial space to subsequently become populated by the circulation gents. (Holl, n.d)

Furthermore, identifying the major sectional organizing element allows technique used to inform how the qualitative properties inform the architectural properties. The exterior wall is very instrumental in the definition of the architectural space of the public plaza, which is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 4: Exterior wall defines space of the public plaza. (Holl, n.d)

The generation of space from Kiasma is considered a process that is activated out of necessity or mainly for the purpose of moving beyond necessity towards an indeterminate quality. According to Delanda, space is a product of populations and is generated out of necessity to support the populations adequately. While in contemporary architecture this may be true, those defining qualities are created to address the future and current needs of the population, which can be done in a myriad of ways, results in a decisive and clear boundary between volumes...