Amos Rex is an art museum where the past, present and future meet.
A new private art museum with unique architecture has been opened in central Helsinki at the end of August 2018. Amos Rex is a meeting place for art and urban culture, consisting of new underground exhibition spaces, the old Lasipalatsi (glass palace) from 1936 and its Bio Rex cinema, as well as a vibrant event forum on Lasipalatsi Square, which will serve as the roof of the exhibition hall.
The core of Amos Rex resides in flexible and easily adaptable exhibition spaces as well as an art workshop dedicated to children and youngsters. The Lasipalatsi’s classical 590-seat movie theatre will provide a home for cross-disciplinary activities, numerous film festivals and regular film screenings on weekends. On weekdays, Bio Rex, with its atmospheric foyer, is available to rent for various events.
Amos Rex’s exhibition programme extends from the newest, often experimental, contemporary art to 20th-century Modernism and ancient cultures. Amos Rex aims to present captivating and ambitious art refreshingly and exuberantly. The goal will be for the past, present and future to produce unique experiences and surprising encounters beneath and above ground, and on the screen.
Designed by architectural firm JKMM, the art museum’s new facility is built beneath the Lasipalatsi square and comprises 2,170 square metres (23,358 sq ft) of highly adaptable and technically well-equipped exhibition space. The goal of the design has been to create as flexible facilities as possible to conform to the needs of ever-changing contemporary art. Along with the construction of the new art museum, the protected Lasipalatsi building has been gently renovated back to its former glory.
As a meeting point for art and urban culture, Amos Rex reinforces Helsinki’s status as a safely bizarre European city of culture.
The planning of Amos Rex began in 2013, and the construction started in January 2016. Amos Rex’s predecessor, the Amos Anderson Art Museum, functioned on Helsinki’s Yrjönkatu in 1965-2017 in the former home and offices of the art patron and newspaper publisher Amos Anderson (1878-1961). Amos Rex is a private art museum whose construction and operations are funded by Amos Anderson’s Föreningen Konstsamfundet association.