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Avesta | Nynäshamn | Kansaneläkelaitos

Kansaneläkelaitos

A year before the town hall competition, Aino and Alvar Aalto had won the design competition for the National Pensions Institute building in Helsinki. The entry, which went under the pseudonym ‘Forum redivivum’, attempted to create a new kind of central square. The site was at the intersection of Runeberginkatu and Mannerheimintie, opposite the site where the new Finnish National Opera now stands. A free-form, paved piazza was surrounded by a high-rise office and commercial building, the National Pensions Institute office building with its lantern-like roof-lights and an 1,800-seat concert hall named ‘Sibelius Hall’.