Long Live Wivi Lönn!

2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Finnish architect Wivi Lönn. The year also marks the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Finnish Association of Women Architects, Architecta. 

The anniversary exhibition examines the female history of architecture, with a particular focus on Wivi Lönn’s exemplary life’s work. 

Wivi Lönn was the first woman architect in Finland to run her own architectural firm. The Long Live Wivi Lönn! exhibition celebrates the career of the architect who broke glass ceilings and her significance for the generations of women architects who followed afterwards. Lönn’s architecture and life are set within a broader societal framework and a gender-responsive history of architecture.

The exhibition also features the Finnish Association of Women Architects Architecta, which was founded on the occasion of Lönn’s birthday in 1942 and whose activities continue still today. For eighty years, the world’s first association of women architects has provided its members with both professional support and a platform for writing the history of Finnish women architects. The extensive archival material documenting the work of women architects, created as a result of the association’s systematic recording activities, will be presented for the first time at the exhibition. Exhibition visitors are invited to a veritable banquet, to enjoy what the archive has to offer. The exhibition also includes excerpts of the development of feminist architectural thinking, from the 1970s to the present day.

The exhibition is co-curated by the Museum of Finnish Architecture staff Anna Autio (collections curator), Jutta Tynkkynen (exhibitions curator) and Marja Rautaharju (head of exhibition services), together with art historian and doctoral researcher Hanna Tyvelä. The exhibition was designed by designer Hanna Anonen.

Museum of Finnish Architecture
29.4.-23.4.2023

Tue, Thu-Sun 11.00-18.00, Wed 11.00-20.00

Admission fee 5-10€, under 18 yrs free entry