The Unknown Suburb
Aleksanterinkatu 16 • 17 April – 13 September 2026 • Free entry
‘The Unknown Suburb’ exhibition starts on the bus stop and the story continues with two-billion-year-old bedrock and ends in a 21st century suburban block of flats. The exhibition opens on Friday 17 April.
Around one in three Finns live in suburbs, but discussions about suburbs are often based on outdated and negatively charged preconceptions. Helsinki City Museum’s exhibition The Unknown Suburb reverses the stigmas associated with suburbs and challenges the perception of suburbs being nests of boredom, misery and poverty. The exhibition aims to look beyond the surface and also explore the love that locals have for their neighbourhoods.
The themes are presented vividly through participatory exercises, an immersive sound environment, tactile façade materials and graffiti by artist Kim Somervuori, among other methods. The Helsinki residents interviewed for the exhibition get to share their everyday and sometimes surprising experiences of their home suburbs.
Slab architecture and refrigerator houses
The exhibition takes visitors on a journey from two-billion-year-old bedrock to a suburban apartment block of the 2000s. The architecture brings together at a glance, through spatial means, the history of Finnish suburbs from the 1940s onwards, with their changing building types. The story culminates at the heart of the suburb, a shopping centre.
At the City Museum, visitors get to explore homely slab architecture, the ‘refrigerator houses’ of Pihlajamäki, the East Helsinki identity and identities outside the city centre, as well as other dimensions of the suburb that are rarely spoken about.
Curators are Research Fellow Laura Berger and Professor Panu Savolainen. Exhibition Planner Alpi Vaalaja and Graphic Designer of the Year 2025 Päivi Helander have created the visuals of the exhibition. The exhibition is produced by Eero Salmio.
Events around Helsinki
The Unknown Suburb focuses specifically on the suburbs of Helsinki, and the event programme spreads across the city. On 29 April, Linna Bar in Suomenlinna will host a pub quiz on Helsinki knowledge. On 27 May, the City Museum will organise a spring clean-up at a culturally and historically notable site. During the summer, the public will also have the opportunity to take part in guided architectural tours in Pihlajamäki and Kannelmäki.
The Unknown Suburb
17 April–13 September 2026
Helsinki City Museum, 4th floor
Aleksanterinkatu 16
Always free entry
Photos: Maarit Hohteri / Helsinki City Museum
