Minister says no culture budget for Guggenheim
Funding for the planned Guggenheim museum in Helsinki’s Katajanokka district is arousing fierce debate. Culture Minister Paavo Arhinmäki says that his ministry’s budget will not be raided to fund the project. Jyri Häkämies, Minister for Economic Affairs, has demanded that the Culture Ministry funds the project.
“We are already cutting money for museums, theatres and orchestras,” Arhinmäki told YLE’s breakfast television. “There is a really tough economic situation. 70 million for construction and a million a year in operating costs, there isn’t that kind of money in the culture budget.”
According to Arhinmäki the assumption underpinning the Guggenheim project was that the money would be found from external sources. Now the outside funding will only stretch to the so-called franchising payment, which covers the 30 million USD that should be paid to the Guggenheim Foundation for rights to use the name and brand.
“Now it looks like everything else is supposed to come from the taxpayer,” said Arhinmäki. “That means that when the National Board of Antiquities (which funds museums in Finland) makes cuts, museums will have to scale back their operations. So the issue should be assessed honestly. This would mean that big cuts would have to be made elsewhere in the culture budget.”
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