Amos Rex celebrates winning the concrete structure of the year 2018 award

Opened in August 2018 to immediate massive success, the Amos Rex art museum is now the winner of the Concrete Structure of the Year 2018 award. The award ceremony was held at Kulttuuritalo in Helsinki on 17 January 2019. Sweco developed the innovative structural design in close cooperation with all parties involved in the project.

Amos Rex, a meeting place for art and urban culture, has received the Concrete Structure of the Year 2018 award for its merits including skilful architectural and structural design as well as high-quality construction and implementation.The collaborative efforts and proficient use of concrete yielded an inspiring architectural whole with successful structural solutions, plenty of character and clever details. The museum is an excellent example of concrete construction: the modifiable interiors and especially the demanding underground structures and above-ground domes highlight the myriad of possibilities afforded by the material.The architectural and functional goal was to create an open and contiguous space that would incorporate the play of natural light in the museum’s interior through the overhead domes and their skylights. The in-situ cast cloister vaults designed by Sweco enabled the inclusion of large pillar-free exhibition spaces underground, while the above-ground sections with the rolling mounds and skylights form an open and interesting urban space for residents to enjoy.“The domes are a magnificent and innovative tour de force from our designers. They were designed to include post-tensioned ring beam structures, which allowed us to stick with the idea of creating an open space while ensuring safe functionality and load-bearing capacity,” describes Structural Engineer Janne Hanka of Sweco, who is extremely pleased with the victory.The spans of the domes extend up to 32 metres, and the structures leverage the maximum compression strength of the materials as well as advanced concrete technology. The demanding geometry was a challenge for both the structural designers and architects of the project. “Amos Rex could not have been designed without fluid cooperation between all parties involved in the project. The designers deserve all the credit,” Hanka says in summary.

The Concrete Structure of the Year award is granted based on an annual competition to find a construction project that best represents Finnish concrete construction. The purpose of the competition is to promote and increase awareness of Finnish concrete architecture, related technology and high-quality concrete construction. The competition is organised by the Association of Concrete Industry in Finland (Betoniteollisuus). The award has been handed out annually since 1970.