At Helsinki’s home museums, you can learn about the characters who influenced cultural life in the nation’s capital and admire their impressive art treasures. The collections at the city’s specialised museums in turn will delight informed numismatics and historians alike!
Always check the current opening hours on the site's own pages!
Exhibitions at Helsinki City Museum
Helsinki City Museum is an experience in which the milieu, exhibitions and interiors tell about everyday life in Helsinki in years gone by. The museum comprises five historic buildings, a modern section that connects them, and three courtyards. The result is a wide variety of spaces and atmospheres, heart-warming details and new perspectives on the oldest quarters in the city. Helsinki City Museum reopened in 2016 after a major renovation and has been praised for its visual appearance, child-friendly exhibitions and innovative approach.
Aleksanterinkatu 16
At the Tram Museum you can take a seat in a historic tram and travel back in time in an instant. Let your imagination run wild as you sit in the driver’s seat, watch old film clips and examine tickets from the past. You can even try stamping tickets the way it used to be done in Helsinki!
Töölönkatu 51 A
The Burgher’s House was built in 1818 and is the oldest surviving wooden building in the city. Inside the charming house and its courtyard you can experience everyday life and living as it was in the Kruununhaka district in the 1860s and ‘70s. The chambers and kitchen have lots of lovely furniture that you can imagine were inherited or bought used by the young 19th-century family. Please note that the museum is open only during the summer season.
Kristianinkatu 12
Art collections
The Kirpilä Art Collection is a unique art museum in a private home that presents the collection of a passionate art collector and upper-class life in the second half of the 20th century in Helsinki. The museum was the home of rheumatologist Juhani Kirpilä (1931–1988) and his partner, the antique dealer Karl (Kalle) Rosenqvist, from 1979 to 1988. It occupies almost 350 square metres of the upper floor of a Functionalist residential building in the Töölö district.
Pohjoinen Hesperiankatu 7, 6th floor
Lauri Reitz (1893–1959) was one of the most significant property developers in Helsinki who collected a major art and antique collection. Between 1927 and 1952 he built over twenty apartment buildings, as well as cinemas, cafés and villas, in and around Helsinki. In accordance with the will of his widow, Maria Reitz, an art museum based on the Lauri Reitz Collection was opened in their former home in 1972.
Apollonkatu 23 B 64, 6th floor
Other free museums
The Päivälehti Museum presents the history of media, modern-day media and the future of media, as well as freedom of speech in Finland and other countries. Alongside the general historical exhibits, the museum also tells the story of Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest daily newspaper, which has been published for 130 years. The aim is to promote the ability to interpret the media and particularly, to encourage children and adolescents to read. The museum’s collections include approximately 4000 objects related to the various stages of newspaper work and approximately 20,000 photographs.
Ludviginkatu 2-4
The Bank of Finland Museum presents the history of money in Finland and elsewhere and the activities of the Bank of Finland within the European central banking system. The museum has a permanent exhibition and special exhibitions. There is also a small café and museum shop.
Snellmaninkatu 2