- PlaceVantaa
- Completion 1985, 1989
- Decade1980s
- PeriodThe changing welfare society
- Year of selection2023
A science centre is an example of a new public building typology that materialised with the economic boom of the 1980s. The open architectural competition for the first purpose-built science centre in the Nordic countries was held in 1985, and the design commission was awarded to architects Mikko Heikkinen and Markku Komonen, who had originally shared first prize. It was their first significant construction project and the starting point for an impressive international career. Construction work began in 1987, and the science centre, named Heureka in accordance with the name of their competition entry, was inaugurated two years later.
Since there were no established forms for the new building typology, Heikkinen and Komonen chose as their starting point images evoked by science. They divided the room programme into several geometric pieces that intersect and pierce each other seemingly at random. In the centre of the rectangular hall of pillars is a cylindrical central space, which is joined on one side by a sector-shaped auditorium, a sphere-shaped cinema theatre and a vaulted hall for changing exhibitions. On the opposite side, there is an office wing with an inclined mirrored glass wall that protects the interior from the noise of the adjacent main railway line. Seen from a passing train, the colouring of its steel structures creates the illusion of the spectrum of visible light.
Each of the geometric pieces follows its own structural system and is clad with different materials, so they act as a kind of construction demonstration. Starting from the competition stage, the architects worked closely with visual artist Lauri Anttila. Structural engineer Matti Ollila also had a considerable influence on many of the technical solutions, such as the slender steel structures of the entrance canopy and the cylindrical central space. The same design team also designed the Heureka bridge over the Keravanjoki river.
In the competition proposal, there were two intended entry routes into the building: from the north through the geometric stone garden, and from the east via the pedestrian bridge crossing the main railway line, past the central space and into the entrance hall. However, the latter route remained a torso, as it became reduced to a balcony protruding towards the track. According to Mikko Heikkinen, the traffic solution was inspired by the Neue Staatsgalerie art museum in Stuttgart (1984) by James Stirling and Michael Wilford. The architects have also mentioned the Stockholm City Library (1927) by Gunnar Asplund as a reference for the design of the central cylinder. Despite these postmodernist and classicist examples, Heureka’s architecture is minimalist modernism, anticipating the mainstream of the 1990s.
In 2016, a mirror-surfaced extension designed by Heikkinen and Komonen was completed on the south side of Heureka. Other than that, the science centre has remained largely in its original form.
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