The City of Tallinn has announced an architectural competition for the Tallinn City Museum’s new Open Collections building, in the framework of which there is also a plan to renovate the current building of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) which will also acquire an additional building.
The history of the EKKM building is rather symbolic: its construction date and designer still unknown, the building was constructed sometime in the 1950s as an auxiliary building for the Tallinn Thermal Power Plant and used as such until 1979. In 2006, a group of artists moved into the building, which had been empty for a long time, and declared it the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Since then, for nearly 20 years, the unrenovated building has hosted an international and acclaimed exhibition programme in rather spartan conditions which due to its circumstances have also sparked creative solutions. The building has been gradually cleaned and rebuilt, but it still lacks a heating system and proper conditions for exhibiting and preserving contemporary art. Despite this, EKKM has given life to an emblematic environment and acquired a symbolic role as an enduring art institution that stands for noncommercial values in the seaside area and public space of Tallinn. Now, in the autumn of 2025, we are happy to announce that the 2019 slogan “Renovate, Not Close EKKM!” has found a positive continuity in “Renovate EKKM!”.
The architectural competition seeks a solution for the Open Collections building, which will accommodate the collections of the Tallinn City Museum and the Museum of Photography and make them accessible to the public, the project will also include the building of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. The goal is to unite the three museums in a spatial whole, yet EKKM will maintain its organizational independence. The aim is to preserve the old industrial building where EKKM currently operates and to restore the overpasses – the partially existing northern overpass, as well as the currently demolished southern overpass that connected EKKM to the Creative Hub (Kultuurikatel). EKKM will also acquire an additional building that can be used for expansion, but also for modern storage and auxiliary facilities.
The architectural competition will be open until 10 December, and its terms and materials can be found here.