Museum Guggenheim Helsinki – The restatement of the monument Part 2 Project 2012 Mara Victoria Bogoescu Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism | Romania The aim of this thesis was to reconstruct the fascination and the poetic value that a RADICAL ARCHITECTURAL OBJECT such as a MONUMENT can produce in a RADICAL SUBLIME SPACE, such as the HARBOUR. By situating itself BEYOND the obsession for the image presented by the ICONIC LANDMARK, this thesis want to revalue the role of the MONUMENT in the contemporary city and the reconstruction of the city harbour’s SUBLIME atmosphere. Through this lens the generic questions stated above can be reformulated:IS THERE PLACE FOR MONUMENTS IN THE WORLD OF THE ICONIC LANDMARK?WHICH IS THE NEW MONUMENTAL SPACE OF THE CONTEMPORARY PORT CITY?Following these questions as a fil rouge throughout the whole project this thesis attempts to re-formulate the role that contemporary architecture can play within the city. THE ICONIC LANDMARK is replaced by THE MONUMENT - a poetic object, an “architecture-parlante” that is closer to BOULEE than to the world famous STARCHITECTS. An object that represents a whole in which all the parts contribute to the main concept, in which nothing is mere decorum or scenery. An example of bigness without the blunt separation between the skin and the body. An estranged object that is poetic and not nice. A symbol that is not related to wealth or spectacle but to the never-ending resilience of human culture. The project goes beyond the scale of the architecture to tackle the reconstruction of the harbour’s atmosphere. A Piranesian space of technical relics and open spaces, populated by MONUMENTS, the revitalised harbour could constitute the new MONUMENTAL SPACE of the port city, the archive of sublime and absolute architecture. Mara Victoria Bogoescu Tutor(s)