National Museum of Finland
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The National Museum of Finland presents Finland's history from the stone age to the present, through object culture. It is located in central Helsinki.
The basic installation of the National Museum is divided into five different parts. The treasury presents the collections of money, medals, awards, silver, and weapons. The Finnish prehistory part is the largest archeological basic installation in Finland. The state part tells of the development of Finnish society and culture from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. The "land and people" part presents life at the countryside before industrialisation. The 20th century part presents independent Finland and its united and internationalised culture. The museum's entrance hall ceiling has ceiling frescoes about the Kalevala, painted by Akseli Gallén-Kallela, which can be seen without an entrance fee. The frescoes, painted in 1928, are based on the frescoes painted by Gallén-Kallela at the Finnish installation of the Paris World Fair in 1900.
The building of the National Museum was designed by architects Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren, and Eliel Saarinen. The appearance of the building mimics Finland's medieval churches and castles. The architecture belongs to national romanticism and the interior mainly to jugend. The museum was built from 1905 to 1910 and opened to the public in 1916. The museum was named the Finnish National Museum after Finland's independence in 1917. After the last fundamental repairing, the museum was opened in 2000.
On Monday 23 January 2006 there was an explosion accident at the National Museum which was probably caused by methane leaked into a cleaning closet and a spark caused by the electrical centre in the closet. There are two possible sources for the methane; a leak in a gas pipe on the nearby Museokatu, or the gas developed on its own in the sewer. Later, police investigations found the cause to be a gas pipe leak [1]. Some of the objects in the museum were damaged in the explosion, although most of them only mildly.
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