Visit the Amos Rex

Made up of two parts – a subterranean museum and the renovated Lasipalatsi office building – Amos Rex is at once dedicated to art and the pursuit of simply hanging out. The underground museum bubbles up from the ground of Lasipalatsi Square to create a playful urban space, with Helsinki residents repurposing the undulating landscape as both a central picnic spot and a skate park. Inside, the exhibition programme at Amos Rex spans experimental contemporary work and art dating from antiquity.
Visual artist Raija Malka, who collaborated with composer Kaija Saariaho to exhibit their multisensory work Blick here in summer 2021, tells Culture Trip about the building’s fascinating history: “It was built originally as a restaurant and pavilion for the 1940 Olympics (which, of course, did not happen). The building was going to be demolished in the 1990s to make way for an office tower. Luckily, this did not happen, and the Amos Anderson Foundation has finally given the building the dignity it deserves as a hotspot of Helsinki’s innovative art and design scene.” Malka recommends that visitors catch a movie at the in-house Bio Rex cinema and peruse the shops surrounding Lasipalatsi to discover the work of local designers.