In 2025, the City Museum hosted two temporary exhibitions: M/S Baltic Queers – Experiences of LGBTQAI+ Migration which won the Helsinki Pride Community’s Pride Changes the World award, and the environmentally responsible summer exhibition Trash! – What we leave behind intended especially for families with children. The Helsinki Bites exhibition, which focused on the history of Helsinki, was open for its last year before an overhaul of the main exhibition. The total number of visitors over the year was 325,713.
– Helsinki City Museum is one of the most popular museums in Finland, and we want to continue providing experiential, smooth and surprising museum experiences. We will renovate the City Museum’s customer facilities early this year and open the new main exhibition in June 2026. We are inviting visitors, residents, communities and colleagues to create more reasons for pride in Helsinki, rejoices Museum Director Reetta Heiskanen.
Stefan Bremer’s photo exhibition attracted a record audience
Stefan Bremer’s photo exhibition Helsinki by Night, which opened in October 2025, attracted a record number of people to Villa Hakasalmi with almost 30,000 visitors by the end of the year. Before that, the Glamour and Curtsy – Upstairs and Downstairs Life exhibition for lovers of manor aesthetics and costume drama was open until the end of August. Additionally, the City Council’s 150th anniversary celebration offered free admission to all Helsinki residents under the age of 20, resulting in hundreds of young people finding new cultural experiences in both exhibitions. Villa Hakasalmi had a total of 63,709 visitors in 2025.
The Worker’s Museum opened on the Night of the Arts
The opening of the Worker’s Museum was celebrated on the Night of the Arts in Alppila, with more than 8,500 neighbours from near and far coming to visit over the autumn. The updated interiors of the stove rooms, the touching stories of residents and soundscapes from the era paint an even richer picture of working-class life in Helsinki. The Worker’s Museum is located right next to Linnanmäki and will reopen for the summer season on 15 April.
In 2025, Helsinki City Museum, Villa Hakasalmi, the Worker’s Museum, the Tram Museum and the Burgher’s House had a total of 448,401 visits. In addition, as Central Uusimaa Regional Museum, Helsinki City Museum develops museum activities in Central Uusimaa in cooperation with local museum sector. Last year, 42% of all museum visits nationwide took place in Central Uusimaa.
Helsinki City Museum was also involved in the everyday lives of Helsinki residents from different language and cultural backgrounds, as well as children, young people and seniors including the Culture Kids programme, aiming to provide every Helsinki resident with a lifelong relationship with culture. The Tramtastic! family event in English attracted over a thousand people to the Tram Museum, and the Worker’s Museum proved to be a popular destination among integration client groups. Puppet theatre performances were organised for preschool groups in cooperation with Ad Astra ry, young immigrants in preparatory education attended workshops, and the City Museum joined the Helsinki Welcome Day event for new international residents. Seniors were met at the Elämän nälkä event, and the memory suitcases were taken around the service homes.
