THE DISSOLVING CORPORATION Contemporary Architecture and Corporate Identity in Finland

PREFACE In the past few years, the Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA has treated the issues of creativity and business-culture interaction with growing interest. This report is an extension of the June, 2004 EVA conference on " Creativity through Competitiveness " and is published in cooperation with the Creative Finland Association. Entertaining a subject quite different from past EVA report themes, this essay offers one perspective on the state of Finnish corporate architecture within the more general context of corporate management practices and architectural innovations. In this report, Professor Peter MacKeith argues that in the contemporary moment of global, open-market economies, Finnish architecture is at a critical juncture. This condition is reflected precisely in recent headquarters architecture produced by Finnish corporations. Whereas a hundred years ago corporate headquarters were central elements of the surrounding cultural and urban environment, expressing values of the emerging national consciousness, today's Finnish corporate headquarters have adopted a style of neutrality and anonymity, and situated themselves outside of the public realm. Professor MacKeith calls for a corporate architecture that takes into account issues of sustainable development and the corporation's relationship to the society, culture and civic realm in which it is physically situated. Along with the desired image and values communicated by a building's form to the outside world, corporate office planning has also adopted new objectives. The author strongly questions whether open-plan, glass-walled working environments truly result in increased creativity, positive encounters and productivity – or whether this is simply a case of parallel rhetoric in management and architectural ambitions. Nevertheless, Professor MacKeith is hopeful: he believes that thanks to its highly educated, design-and environment-conscious society, Fin-land possesses the means to demonstrate the benefits of " a design culture ". Superseding the structures and values of the information society, such a culture has great potential for being the pioneer of original as well as culturally and environmentally sustainable corporate architecture. We sincerely hope that this report will provide interesting reading for amateurs of architecture, and offer new perspectives to experts as well. We shall emphasize that the views expressed are the author's. We also wish to give our warmest thanks to all those that assisted in the process of creating this report, as well as the project's coordinator Kati Heikin-heimo. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project was initiated on the basis of conversations on architecture, economics and culture in Finland over the last ten years with Dr. …