Aalto² museum center

Our office designed the renovation of the Jyväskylä Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Central Finland, as well as an extension that connected the buildings into the new Aalto2 Museum Center.

The museum center was opened to the public in May 2023.

Alvar Aalto designed the Museum of Central Finland, which was completed in Jyväskylä’s Ruusupuisto in 1960. The adjacent Alvar Aalto Museum was completed in 1973 as the Jyväskylä Art Museum. Both buildings represent Alvar Aalto’s late “white period.”

During the renovation, the Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Central Finland were combined into a museum center with a new connector building in between. This new connector space houses a museum shop serving both museums and provides an open area for events within the new museum center.

Alvar Aalto Museum

During the renovation of the Alvar Aalto Museum, the protected architectural integrity of the museum’s main spaces was preserved. Significant spatial changes were made in the rear areas of the museum’s ground floor, where existing storage spaces were converted into educational and meeting rooms, as well as an exhibition space functioning as a connector to the new building section.

The renewed spaces of the Alvar Aalto Museum were completed in the spring of 2023.

Museum of Central Finland

The minimalist plastered museum building represents the late white period of Alvar Aalto’s work. The extension completed in 1990 was designed by the architectural firm Alvar Aalto & Co and is located below the old building on a slope. With the completion of the extension, the museum’s public entrance was relocated to a shared square with the Alvar Aalto Museum.

The most significant interior spaces of the building include the spacious art hall on the top floor, illuminated by skylights, a lecture hall with a wooden ceiling reminiscent of the Viipuri Library, and a cafe with well-preserved original furnishings.

For the Museum of Central Finland, the renovation was completed in 2020.