Built in 1935, the Joenniemi Manor was the masterpiece of architect Jarl Eklund. The floor plan and design of the building point to the clear influence of Functionalism and English country house architecture. The park and formal garden featuring geometric landscape elements are designed by Paul Olsson in the same year. At that time, this style of landscape was unique in the Mänttä village community. The Joenniemi Manor and its garden are symbols of the architecture in the early 20th century and express the cultural awareness in Finland’s rural surroundings.
The architectural solution by award-winning architects Kubota & Bachmann intends a discrete insertion of the new extension into the site. The horizontality of the glass roof reflects the different seasons and times of the sky. The interior benefits from a panoramic view of the Lake Melasjärvi. Beneath the large roof and taking advantage of an existing depression in the site, the program elements step gently down in sequence: conference and representation facilities, restaurant and kitchen facilities, offices, collection facilities, exhibition facilities, the sequence terminating at the foot of the banks of Lake Melasjärvi.
The extension museum facilities, built adjacent to the existing museum facilities, take up the concept of a paradisiacal garden (e.g. Parc de sceaux). Its glass with green ceramic print and circle gray-green solar panels establishes a dialogue with nymphaeaceae on the Lake Melasjärvi and the gray-green bronze of the existing roof. While meeting the standards of the 21st century, the Serlachius Museum Gösta Extension will be committed to respect the history of Joenniemi Manor: Paul Olsson’s landscape design will be revisited. The conservation of the “old” combined with the harmonically integrated “new” shall recreate a Joenniemi Manor where visitors and art lovers, both local and international, can discover and enjoy Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts, Joenniemi Manor’s architectural-historical values, and of course, the natural beauty of the Lake Melasjärvi.
