Renovation of the National Museum’s historic building

Constructed in 1905–1910 and designed by Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen, the main building was last restored and renovated between 1995 and 2000. The current renovation will include the restoration of the National Museum's roofs, facades and ventilation. The stone fence wall surrounding the museum will also be repaired. The natural stone facades of the National Museum's tower were renovated in 2017, so there is no need to repair them in this renovation.

The building materials used in the renovation of the National Museum are durable and of high quality, as were the materials chosen during the construction of the museum more than a hundred years ago. Under the guidance of the building preservation authorities, the renovation aims to preserve and, in some cases, restore the original technical solutions of the historic main building. The façades of the building were originally made predominantly of Uusikaupunki granite, using the "square rubble" masonry technique, i.e. masonry of rectangular stones of different sizes into a vividly uniform wall. The wall surfaces above the stone walls were traditionally plastered and lime-washed. The current renovation will involve only minor repairs to the natural stone walls, and the restoration of the original lime paint on walls that have been treated with other materials over the decades.

The steep roofs of the museum building were made in the turn of the 1800s and 1900s from slates from Penrhyn, the largest and highest quality Welsh slate quarry in the world. Slate tiles from the still-operating quarry are now used to repair the roof. The well-preserved soapstone façade decorative sculptures of Nunn Bay are being lightly conserved.

The Kalevala-themed ceiling frescoes of Akseli-Gallen Kallela are protected throughout the renovation. The museum objects in the exhibition halls have been moved to the Collection Centre of the Finnish Heritage Agency for the duration of the renovation.

The National Museum's historic main building will house permanent collection exhibitions, temporary exhibitions, a museum shop, group work and pedagogical space, and spaces for events and gatherings. In addition, the museum staff will retain their working space in the museum building.

The Halkopiha courtyard, which served as the terrace of the museum restaurant, will be covered and, in addition to the event space, there will be a staircase connecting the hirtoric building with the museum extension, which is mainly underground. The Vaunuvaja building, located in the northern part of the Museum's courtyard garden, will be repaired and its surfaces will be lime-washed. The tin roof will also be painted.

The renovation of the historic main building will be completed by early 2027.

The main contractor for the project is NCC.