This year Helsinki presents an exceptional program of cultural events celebrating Finnish design, art, architecture and storytelling. Throughout 2025 the city will host a rich lineup of exhibitions, festivals and international events that highlight Helsinki’s creative spirit.
© Anni Koponen
The newly renovated Finlandia Hall, a landmark of modern architecture designed by Alvar Aalto and completed in 1971, reopened in January with a refreshed program of exhibitions and visitor services. After an extensive renovation, the venue—long known as a major center for conferences and events—now offers new amenities such as accommodation options, a bistro restaurant and a wine café. A permanent exhibition opening in June will explore Finnish identity and the creative lives of Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto, offering visitors insight into Aalto’s design principles and lasting legacy.
Contemporary Finnish art is also well represented across the city. The Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) presents rotating exhibitions that showcase both established and emerging Finnish artists.
© Anni Koponen
As summer arrives, the Helsinki Biennial (June 8–September 21) will stage the theme “Shelter,” inviting a dialogue between art and nature and transforming public spaces such as Esplanade Park and Vallisaari island into immersive stages. In September, Helsinki Design Week (September 5–14) celebrates its 20th anniversary, exploring creativity with a focus on happiness as a design principle and imagining more hopeful futures.
Helsinki Design Week’s program includes Design Market, Open Studios and PechaKucha Night, as well as symposiums and satellite events that span multiple design disciplines. The festival will revisit standout moments from past editions while highlighting Helsinki’s role as an international center for design and architecture.
© Helsinki Partners
2025 also marks an anniversary year for Tove Jansson’s beloved Moomin stories. The first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, was written in Helsinki in 1945 as a fairytale to comfort the author during wartime. The tale introduces Moominmamma and Moomintroll as they search for a new home in Moominvalley—a welcoming place where a tall blue house symbolizes acceptance and belonging.
Helsinki will commemorate this legacy with two major exhibitions. One long-running presentation at the Helsinki Art Museum explores Jansson’s public paintings, showing how her art created joy, beauty and windows into imaginative worlds. The exhibition offers fresh perspectives on how architecture and design informed Jansson’s storytelling and visual universe.
© Helsinki Partners / Ella Tommila
In recent years the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Design Museum Helsinki merged their collections and programs to form a new national museum dedicated to architecture and design. While a new building is planned for the Makasiiniranta area in South Harbour, both institutions will continue to operate at their current locations with joint programming and exhibitions through the coming years.
The new national architecture and design museum is scheduled to open in 2030, and the selection of the architectural firm for the new building will be announced soon. Until then, visitors in 2025 can enjoy the impressive exhibitions and programs at the existing Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum Helsinki, both of which continue to present a diverse range of displays highlighting Finnish creativity and heritage.