STORY AND DESIGN
Designing a national museum for Estonia was an extraordinary challenge given the country’s many decades of tumultuous history, a history that is recent enough to still remain in the nation’s memory. Following a brief period of sovereignty in the early 20th century, Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union until 1991. After regaining its independence, the country went through a period of rapid growth, and joined the European Union in 2004.
Estonia’s dynamic rise seemed to require a special place to reflect on its history—a building that could resonate with the past, but which would have a new, forward-looking face. The international competition for the design and execution of this 34 000 m² museum building, housing a collection of 140 000 objects, was launched in 2005. The winning and today executed design of this museum disregarded the site proposed in the competition’s brief, the proposed scheme sits in prolongation of a nearby former Soviet military base. At the core of the plan was a transformation of a large airfield, once used by Soviet bombers, into an extension of the slanted 1.5 km roof. The Museum acts on the territorial scale, playing an essential role in the regeneration of the area. It is sensitively implemented on the site – its roof lifting and expanding towards ‘infinite space’- inviting the visitor to enter into the landscape and into the heart of the museum.

The structure beneath it resembles a glass wedge inserted into the landscape that slowly reaches upward from the ground—a built allegory for the country’s emerging history. Meanwhile, exhibitions, conferences, and other public programs connect to landscape and poetically delve in their surrounding. This museum of 34 000 m2 is the largest national museum in the Baltic states and its exhibition gives an overview of the Estonian Cultural history starting from the Stone Age until present times as well as a thorough insight into the traditions and rituals of all the Finno-Ugric people in their natural living environment.

ASPIRATIONS
This project takes on the astonishingly significant opportunity to design and execute an active and new cultural institution representing a nation’s identity—expressing the inherent nature of the existence of the Estonian nation. What would the new building of the Estonian National Museum contribute to the society of Estonia and Estonia’s identity in a Europe without borders? The design emphasizes this potential in an active and progressive manner and have deep regard for the profound public responsibility of this particular cultural institution. The project aims to make a significant contribution to the public environment by activating the public space and focusing on an inherently Estonian theme that could stimulate discussion of the history of Estonia. This would help the museum to rise above the excessively local and excessively generic trends. This mission is accomplished on the international level, drawing attention to Estonia in a wider context. This project participates in creating large respect in a society that is building up a new, democratic discourse and aspires to attain a distinguished position among the nations of Europe.

THE COLLECTION
The collections of the Estonian National Museum (ENM) are comprised of objects from the early to late periods, mostly textiles of various types representing Estonia’s material culture in times past and present. A museum of ethnic heritage displaying the life and culture of the nation in its temporal, spatial, and social diversity functions in reconciliation and rivalry with the new emerging pop culture which in modern days finds its expression through visual means: the media, fashion, travel and lifestyle. The design of the building assigns the new museum complex an active role in the new global pop culture, transcending national boundaries and transforming the rather passive, “dusty” attitude towards the museum into an active, even “hip” approach that would attract the younger generation and be functional and competitive in the international context.

The building is designed with spaces for the collection, preservation, study and exchange of cultural and distribution to the public of historical items that are reflective of the Finno-Ugric peoples, Estonia, and the minorities living in Estonia. The ENM is an ethnologically (cultural anthropology) oriented national central museum, whose ethnological, cultural research and museology activities aid in the preservation and development of Estonian culture, keeping Estonian identity in an increasingly globalizing world and fostering better understanding between different cultures.

Architects: Dorell.Ghotmeh.Tane
Photograpgy: Takuji Shimmura , Arp Karm.