YLE Backs Out from Helsinki Music Hall/ YLE News
Published 2.11.2007
The financially-strapped YLE was to have been a main partner with the State of Finland and the City of Helsinki in the project. YLE's Radio Symphony Orchestra has long been in need of a concert hall. YLE Director General Mikael Jungner says that the RSO may simply rent space in the building. YLE had been prepared to pay 35 million euros toward the cost of building the hall. However, according to the latest bid for the building job, which was received on Monday, YLE's share would have risen sharply. Sole Bid Rejected -- Again On Friday, the board of the music hall rejected this only bid to build it -- repeating a process carried out last spring. The planned site for the building is between the House of Parliament, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Sanoma building. The site was previously occupied by a group of nineteenth-century brick warehouses owned by the Finnish Railways (VR). They were slated for demolition when they were destroyed by a fire in May 2006. YLE |