7 elements of successful cultural center design
November 06, 2024
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Today’s museums must be more than exhibition spaces. Here are the steps to make it happen.
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A version of this blog first appeared as “What public cultural buildings need to succeed” in Design Quarterly Issue 22.
Public cultural buildings have a special place in our cities. These iconic landmarks are often the must-sees of the world’s great urban centers. The opportunity to fund and build a museum and cultural center does not come along often. And the expectations for them are high. These buildings are often largely financed from the public purse, and in our day, they are expected to reknit the city’s fabric. Society wants museums to enliven downtowns, excite tourism, and engage the population. They should tell a story about culture, history, and place.
Naturally, cities are looking for special cultural center designs for these places.
Recently, we gathered an integrated design team to enter an international architecture competition with a design for the Museum of History and the Future (MHF). The City of Turku in Finland sponsored it.
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The rooftop cafe of the Museum of History and the Future (MHF) offers 360-degree views of Turku, the Turku Castle, and River Aura. (Images from Stantec’s Kokea Yhteyttä proposal for the Museum of History and the Future in Turku, Finland.)
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Turku is Finland’s oldest city, boasting the historic, medieval Turku Castle. Today. it’s a regional capital at the gateway to the Archipelago Sea. The competition allowed us to consider what design elements make a successful public cultural center design for a museum of history and the future. Here’s a look at seven key design elements.
1. Start with importance
A public cultural building needs to have a presence. Cultural center design needs to communicate a sense of importance.
As such, public cultural buildings need to be of an appropriate scale to their surroundings to radiate that magnetic presence. The Turku MHF project will occupy a prominent location on the waterfront, connecting the city to the sea and the world to Turku. Presently, this area is an unwelcoming industrial working waterfront bisected by a rail spur with a vast parking lot where ferries and cruise ships arrive. The museum must capture the spirit of the new, public-facing waterfront and act as a front door to Turku.
2. Permanence and cultural relevance
A successful cultural center design needs a clear and compelling concept. It needs to reflect the history, culture, and aspirations of the place and the people. The building’s materials should convey that it will stand for generations.
For the Turku MHF, we took inspiration from the original stave churches in Scandinavia, which have stood for nearly a thousand years. Traditionally, everything is wood. Their cladding. Their structure. It’s repeatedly treated with pine tar to protect the wood from moisture, ultraviolet light, and rot. We wanted to draw on the past in our materials choices and communicate permanence and resilience.
Our competition cultural center design was further inspired by the arches in the nearby Turku Castle, the Aura River, and the Archipelago Sea. Our design proposed durable and sustainable materials that work in the Finnish climate and context. Our proposal features a scalloped facade of tall vertical wood slats over polished brass panels. It lends a dynamic and lenticular effect to the facade and roof line. Depending on the time of day and angle of approach, the building responds differently to the light, appearing solid at times and porous at others.
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The exterior of our team’s design for the Turku MHF features pine tar-covered wood slats over polished brass panels.
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3. Space that’s functional, flexible, and adaptable
Civic cultural buildings like museums are meant to live long and serve many purposes. Museums must also be great exhibition spaces. Hosting exhibits is a key part of the public museum experience. And they need offstage areas to ease the installation and removal of those exhibits. They should be pleasing for the public to access and enjoy. They also require a variety of flexible spaces, programs, and amenities that cater to a wide range of needs and interests.
Our cultural center design features two elevated black box exhibition spaces. By design, we are protecting the exhibits and artifacts in the event of sea level rise. At the center of the public arcade, the atrium thoroughfare leads to a grand staircase to the galleries above. We organized the space to ease movement in and out of the galleries—and for engagement, respite, and reflection. And the rooftop terrace offers additional outdoor exhibition space for sculptures.
4. A welcoming start
A cultural center should feel welcoming. Transparency, mainly at the ground level, helps visitors connect with the museum. People can feel a sense of nervousness when approaching a large public building, especially for the first time. If visitors can see inside past the threshold, it helps them understand what they’re going to experience. That preview can comfort them. So, transparency and permeability are important aspects of any public cultural center.
" }A successful cultural center design needs a clear and compelling concept. It needs to reflect the history, culture, and aspirations of the place and the people.
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We proposed an elegant solution to make this large-scale building approachable. A series of wide scallops clad in polished brass panels are lightly veiled by an array of blackened vertical wood slats. This provides presence, rhythm, and variety. It helps break down the building scale. The museum maintains a level of grandeur with the rhythmic pattern providing continuous visual relief.
For the museum base, we drew inspiration from the shapes of the exterior Roman arches and interior vaults of the nearby Turku Castle to create a public arcade. We took that same shape and flattened it to create a pattern on the ground that reads as a modern, subtle icon for the museum. We extended the pattern across the plaza and arcade floor to establish a common ground connecting the public plaza through the museum. The pattern appears in varying scales along the major East-West axis helping visitors find their way to the entrance. We wanted to encourage people to stroll straight through its center.
5. Connection to the public
A cultural building needs to physically connect to the public on a common plane, without separation. It symbolizes that in this civic building and as a society we’re on common ground. The museum must provide a memorable and distinctive experience. It should invite curiosity, dialogue, and exploration. A successful cultural center design for a museum connects to the surrounding urban fabric and public spaces. It creates opportunities for interaction and engagement. It brings people together.
The Turku MHF is intended to be a museum of gathering. It needs to connect to the past, look forward, and inspire the community to work together toward a better future for all. This is a museum where you can get a bite to eat and learn about the past. It’s a place where you can make something or pull up to a desk, analyze information, and write about the future. There are multiple components to the museum: a living room, gathering and event spaces, auditorium, restaurant, shop and makerspace, an outdoor public market, rooftop café, and more.
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We designed the museum circulation to connect to stairs that lead to the main black box exhibition spaces on the second floor.
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On the Turku MHF design, we used the arcade and ground floor to create an open transparent public space that invites visitors to come in, move around, interact, and pass through.
The museum will act as a hub to various Turku destinations. We thought of the museum as a cornerstone to the new public, walkable arts district. The district stretches from the town center to what will become a public park at the Turku Castle and the renovated cruise terminal arrival area. For the cultural center design competition project, we linked the museum and its public market and event spaces to the riverfront boardwalk, the historic castle, the castle grounds, and the recently rebuilt ferry and cruise line docking areas. The museum acts as a nexus between these various destinations—connecting people, history, transit, and nature.
6. Low-carbon design decisions
Today’s museums can exemplify design for low or net zero carbon. Cultural center design should be both beautiful and energy efficient.
For the Turku MHF, we looked at building orientation, structure, and external shading. It would create an efficient, insulated building envelope that reduces its energy appetite. A ground source heat exchange system and energy recovery ventilator provide efficient heating and cooling to the museum. Our plan minimizes embodied carbon by using carbon capture concrete, mass timber construction, and an efficient building module that reduces construction waste. The result is a beautiful testament to the possibilities for low-carbon design.
7. Connection to nature and views
Sometimes, civic buildings can seem cold, disconnected, and isolated. Designs that invite a connection or provide elements of nature can soften the presence of these large buildings. A cultural center should showcase views of the surrounding landscape or cityscape. We need to find a balanced approach to nature, building, city, and views.
We wanted to celebrate the landscape of the islands of the Archipelago Sea. We also wanted to reintroduce a “wild” forest to this former industrialized site. Our design creates two public green spaces on either side of the museum. The wild side echoes a natural pine forest, presenting the building in a natural setting and creating a sense of drama. Bisected by walkways, it acts as a natural play area for children. The future park-like greenspace of Turku Castle on the other side is set against the outdoor event space designed to host markets, festivals, and concerts. The design’s most powerful natural connection is to the waterways that connect Turku and the Archipelago Sea to the world beyond.
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The landscape design for the Turku MHF brings the natural elements of the river, rock beach, and forest up to the museum plaza.
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How do you anticipate sea level rise in a place like Turku? Rather than follow the sea wall that runs along the Aura River, we designed a temporary harbor/rocky beach landscape that allows surging water to flow safely into the site. In our design, the sea wall passes in front of the museum’s plaza. Our proposal brings together land, sea, forest, and culture. The cultural center design acknowledges the calamitous effects of climate change. But it balances beauty and pragmatism. It also acts as a play area for kids and a kayak launch or a place to welcome small boats. It gives the museum flexibility to incorporate a proposed permanent harbor.
We created two important views from the galleries. Two glass corners expose exhibitions to passersby and offer amazing views of Turku Castle, the waterway, and the surrounding landscape. Two opposing enclosed corners reinforce the idea of strength at its edges. There are additional views—to the castle and future park or to the wharf—once one ascends the grand stair to the gallery level.
In designing the rooftop, serendipity struck. We envisioned 531 solar “trumpets” as indirect light wells for the black box exhibition spaces below. To enhance the roof’s appeal, we transformed this field of solar trumpets into a green meadow roofscape, which references Finland’s natural beauty. There, visitors can sit amidst playful forms that pop out from the tall grasses. And the rooftop includes a café and sculpture garden. It offers unparalleled panoramic 360-degree views of Turku and the waterway.
Integrated design
The best civic cultural buildings are harmonious. They integrate urban planning, architecture, landscape, structure, and systems.
We assembled an internal team of visionary designers and engineers to take an integrated approach to the design. Together, we imagined a new museum. We collaborated on a design that reaches out to Turku, connecting its historic assets with its rejuvenated waterfront and planned arts district.
We weave together architecture, nature, history, sustainability, recreation, and resiliency. The result? Our vision for a new museum complex in Turku. The competition project is already paying dividends in inspiring new collaborations. We’re looking for places to apply our design approach to our next cultural building.
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