I was well aware of the huge challenges I faced after being appointed director of the Helsinki City Museum in 2003. The storage of large collections and other questions of collection policy were the first things waiting on my desk to be solved, and ten years has been spent dealing with them. Navigating in an ever faster paced and unpredictable operating environment, digitalisation and the public availability of information, answering citizens’ needs for involvement and the shrinking of the public purse are everyday themes in the work of a museum director. They have also radically changed museum work. The shift has also ushered in a completely new kind of dynamic and wonderful energy over the past ten years, despite the increasing scarcity of resources across the whole museum sector. Helsinki, the starting point for our work and its foundation, has also changed, both physically and in terms of its mental landscape.

Over the last few years, Helsinki City Museum has probably experienced the most significant period of change in its entire 100-year history. In 2016 a new flagship for the museum will be opened on the corner of Senate Square, and during 2015–16 a joint collection centre with Helsinki City Art Museum will appear in Vantaa. At the same time the organisation will be streamlined in order for us to reach our goals. Our renewal work has been guided by the wish for a better and more profound understanding of our customers’ needs and the new thinking about museum services that has sprung from this. Helsinki City Museum has reformulated its vision and strategic focus; we are striving to work in such a way that “everyone has the chance to fall in love with Helsinki.” This journey of change has been undertaken together with staff, interest groups, partners and customers, utilising the diverse methods of service design. An important task of a museum director is to maintain course and guide the ship that is the museum towards its destination port. At the top of these objectives is the creation of a city museum seen as being at the core of Helsinki’s history, a museum which is easily approachable and engages people at an emotional level.