The Didrichsen Art Museum

The Didrichsen Art Museum is the result of a love of art. All pieces are bought by Marie-Louise and Gunnar Didrichsen together. It was important to them that they both liked the artworks. The collection consists of Finnish art from the 20th century among others Edelfelt, Cawén, Schjerfbeck, Särestöniemi, Linnovaara, Hiltunen and Pullinen. In the modern international art collection there are works by: Picasso, Kandinsky, Miró, Léger, Moore, Giacometti and Arp.

"Paintings have always interested us, indeed, shortly after our marriage we bought our first important one, the 'Ateria' (eng. Meal) by Pekka Halonen. At first we collected traditional older Finnish art, but as time went on our interest turned from the older masters to more modern painting."

Historical holdings

Finland's only Pre-Columbian art collection is situated in the basement where you also can find the Oriental art. With Pre-Columbian art we understand complex and highly developed American Indian cultures in Mesoamerica and the Andean area of South America from 2000 B.C. to the 14th century A.D. You will find following cultures represented in the collections: Olmec, Jalisco, Colima and Maya.

The oriental art collection is dominated by Chinese art from the Shang-dynasty (abt 1500-1028) B.C. to the Ming-dynasty (1368-1644). The collection also includes art from the Far and Near East.

Architecture

Villa Didrichsen was designed by architect Viljo Revell (1910-1965) in 1958-59. Six year later the art collection was placed in a new annex connected to the villa. In the cosy museum art and architecture meet with the surrounding nature. The garden is not filled with sweet flowers but instead with sculptures such as Henry Moore's Reclining Figure on Pedestal (1960), Atom Piece (1964) and Eila Hiltunen's Crescendo with the dedication words: "In Memoriam Marie-Louise Didrichsen".

Viljo Revell's most famous creation is the City Hall in Toronto 1959-65. It was a comissio he won in competition with more than 500 architects from all over the world. Among his other works are the Civic Center in Vasa, the Kansallis- Osake- Pankki's office building in Lahti, the Hyvon Kudeneule's factory in Hanko, the guards barracks in Helsinki and the Vatiala funeral chapel in Tampere.

When Viljo Revell worked as Alvar Aaltos assistant he accepted a modest and humanistic modernism. From his early romantic styled architecture he soon emerged towards rationalism. Developing an even stricter rationalism in the 50'ies he soon followed his master Le Corbusiers example. Just at that time there was a new concrete wave in England called brutalism. The concrete was not smothened or covered-up but instead it was left bare so that the tracks of the mots could be seen. This style is characterized by horisontalism. All overdimensioned and heavy forms step forward when again the supplements are left behind the frontier.