Architecture & Design Museum

The Design Museum in Helsinki occupies a former schoolhouse built of red brick, distinguished by its high, pointed tower and the elaborate cast-iron ornamentation tracing the roofline. Gustaf Nystrom designed the building in eighteen ninety-four to house the Helsinki Industrial School. In the nineteen seventies, the collection of Finnish design moved into these classrooms. Visitors often wonder about the wooden relief above the entrance, which depicts a blacksmith and a potter, symbols of the crafts that once defined Finnish manufacturing.