The Soviet-era floor
Art under censorship, and how it evaded it.
FrDr โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท FrDr โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท FrDr โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท FrDr โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Kumu for Estonian art and the contemporary building โ the first choice for one visit; the palace for old European art in Baroque rooms. Both stand in the same park and the combined ticket saves.
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The Baltic states' largest art museum, and its building is an event in itself: Kumu (2006) was built by the Finnish architect Pekka Vapaavuori into the limestone edge of Kadriorg hill โ half cut into the rock and half a curving arc of copper, glass and limestone wrapping the slope, and it won European Museum of the Year in 2008. Five floors tell Estonian art from the eighteenth century to today, the strongest being the floor devoted to the Soviet era: how artists painted under censorship, what imposed socialist realism meant, and how some developed a symbolic language to evade it โ a frankness rare in the region's museums. The top floor holds contemporary art in temporary shows, and there is an auditorium below ground. The building stands in Kadriorg park itself, so it combines with the palace and gardens in half a day โ and tram 1 or 3 from the centre reaches it in ten minutes.
Art under censorship, and how it evaded it.
Half of it cut into the limestone.
Weizenbergi 34, Tallinn