Helsinki Music Centre

Helsinki Music Centre
Finnish: Helsingin musiikkitalo Swedish: Musikhuset i Helsingfors
Helsinki Music Centre in August 2011, shortly before opening
General information
Type	Concert Hall
Location	Helsinki, Finland
Address	Mannerheimintie 13 A
Coordinates	60°10′25″N 24°56′06″E / 60.17361°N 24.93500°E / 60.17361; 24.93500Coordinates: 60°10′25″N 24°56′06″E / 60.17361°N 24.93500°E / 60.17361; 24.93500
Construction started	October 22, 2008
Completed	April 2011
Cost	189 million euros (building 166 M€, equipment 23 M€)
Client	Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sibelius Academy
Owner	Senate Properties, City of Helsinki, Yleisradio.
Technical details
Floor area	36,000 m2 (390,000 sq ft)
Design and construction
Architect	Marko Kivistö, Ola Laiho and Mikko Pulkkinen
Main contractor	SRV

The Helsinki Music Centre (Finnish: Helsingin musiikkitalo, Swedish: Musikhuset i Helsingfors) is a concert hall and a music center in Töölönlahti, Helsinki. The building is home to Sibelius Academy and two symphony orchestras, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Music Centre is located on a prestigious site between Finlandia Hall and the museum of contemporary art Kiasma, and across the street from the Parliament of Finland. The vineyard-type main concert hall seats 1,704 people. The building contains five smaller rooms for 140–400 listeners. These include a chamber music hall, a chamber opera hall, an organ hall, a 'black box' room for electrically amplified music and a rehearsal hall. The smaller rooms are used regularly by the students of Sibelius Academy for their training and student concerts.

Classical musicians in Helsinki had desired a purpose-built concert hall at least since the hall of the University of Helsinki, where Jean Sibelius conducted some of his works, was damaged in World War II. Eventually Finlandia Hall, designed by Alvar Aalto, was completed in 1971 and it became one of the major venues for concerts, but the building was conceived as a mixed use conference centre and the acoustics of the main hall were never satisfactory. The Sibelius Academy expressed interest in a new concert hall in 1992, and formal planning started 1994 as the two major symphony orchestras of Helsinki, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Helsinki Philharmonic joined the project. A two-part architectural competition on the design was held in 1999 and 2000 for a site at Töölönlahti, opposite the Parliament House. The competition was won by the Turku-based LPR Architects, with then 30-year-old architect Marko Kivistö as chief designer.