The History Exhibition of Helsinki City Museum

12.10.26

Helsinki City Museum’s new history exhibition combines interactivity with everyday history

The exhibition also features familiar symbols of the cityscape, including a plastic replica of Havis Amanda that mimics the statue’s patinated bronze surface

The Helsinki City Museum’s main exhibition, which opened in spring 2026, presents the city’s history through an interactive and immersive approach. It offers a well-designed, compelling overview of key moments in the capital’s development.

Read this text in Finnish here

An interactive timeline in a historical setting

The exhibition begins with a timeline where turning points in Helsinki's history come to life through sliding images and video displays. Visitors can also interact with the visual presentations, and interactivity features prominently throughout nearly the entire exhibition.

From the timeline, visitors take an elevator to a more in-depth presentation of the area's history. The idea of using the elevator as a kind of time machine is effective and has also been used in other cultural history museums, although here it remains a rather subtle element.

The museum buildings stand at the heart of Helsinki’s historic centre, on the edge of Senate Square.

When museums are housed in new buildings, exhibition designers and builders have more freedom in planning the exhibition architecture. A historic protected building, on the other hand, imposes its own constraints on spatial design. Here, the low rooms and original ceilings create a unique atmosphere, and walking through parts of the exhibition feels like exploring an elaborately decorated scale model or dollhouse.

A fresh approach to prehistory

The section on prehistory, in particular, departs from traditional museum rhetoric. Instead of focusing on conventional artifact inventories, pottery decoration, and arrowhead typologies, it approaches the Stone Age through living conditions, the environment, and diet.

A contemporary fridge-freezer creates an intriguing link to the present in the prehistory section. By opening its doors, visitors can explore Stone Age diets in a familiar setting. Although the idea may initially surprise those accustomed to more traditional museum displays, it proves to be a practical and accessible way to understand the past.

Until the new National Museum opens in 2027, visitors can see an excellent exhibition about the history of Helsinki—and, naturally, Finland as well—at the corner of Senate Square.

It is also exceptional that admission to the museum is free. This benefits all city residents, as well as tourists, who may be surprised by the relatively high admission fees at many of Helsinki's other museums.

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Highlights from the exhibition

Texts from the exhibition’s accompanying materials; photographs by the author, 24 September 2026

In the Stone Age, the first inhabitants settled in present-day Helsinki along sandy shores. The sea level was then over 20 metres higher than today. Stone Age people relied on fishing, hunting and gathering. The warmer climate and waterways facilitated movement, and food was cooked over open fires. Seals provided meat, blubber, leather and bones. They were hunted on the ice in winter, along the ice edge in spring, and from boats using nets in autumn. Only stone and clay artifacts remain from the Stone Age. Although early languages vanished, human settlement in the Helsinki region has continued continuously for millennia.

A small wooden church built in the 1550s fell into disrepair after Helsinki was relocated in the 1640s. Its inventory included fine donations from wealthy burghers.

Helsinki’s trade expanded from the Baltic Sea in the 16th century to the North Sea in the 17th century and the Mediterranean in the 18th century

Following the fire of 1808 and becoming the capital in 1812, Helsinki was redesigned in a grand Empire style under architect C. L. Engel.

Finland's central government agencies were relocated from Turku to Helsinki. The growing capital attracted craftsmen and rural workers.

Russian was added to street signs in 1833 and Finnish in the late 1890s. In 1903, Russian was placed at the top as part of Russification policies, sparking local protests.

Built in 1913 as a symbol of Russian rule, the Peace Chapel was tarred by students in 1919 and demolished in 1920. Its imperial double-headed eagle was preserved in the museum.

Unveiled in 1908, Ville Vallgren’s Havis Amanda statue initially sparked debate, but eventually became a beloved symbol, with its public May Day capping tradition starting in 1951

After population decline and high linguistic homogeneity in the 1950s, Helsinki grew again in the 1990s, with its foreign-born population quintupling by 2000. The 1980s brought economic boom and alternative youth culture. A severe recession in the early 1990s pushed unemployment above 20%, though recovery began late in the decade.