Helsinki City Museum

This free city museum gives a brief snap shot of Helsinki in a nut shell. Nice section dedicated to skateboarders with great action shots. A section on sauna uses cloth life size figures with anatomical detail. Children’s section is nice. Areas with sitting areas indoors and outdoors in covered area. The gift shop is full of educational fun toys and tasteful postcards

You can't go wrong with this one, considering it's free to enter. I love the layout of the first floor and good open and welcoming it is. Many people are here just to spend sometime together and enjoy the public space. Why not? You can bring something with you too eat there is a cafe or you can warm it up. Regarding exhibition, there is permanent one and temporary. The permanent is all about history of Helsinki and is ok, but not that special. The temporary one was all about trash and also tired very closely to the city, very insightful and highly interactive exhibition, worth visiting.

A very interesting and slightly unconventional city museum. We started from the top floor with a temporary exhibition clearly aimed more at locals than tourists — a great gesture showing the museum's commitment to engaging with its community. That’s exactly what a true city museum should do. The permanent historical exhibition was broad but engaging, with many interactive elements — not always tech-based, which made it feel refreshingly hands-on. You can try on local costumes or peek into recreated spaces. There was also a fun little exhibition about saunas. The museum shop offers lovely, well-designed souvenirs. Entry is free, which is a wonderful bonus. A great place to visit in Helsinki if you want to feel the city’s atmosphere and understand its story. Highly recommended!

Free entry and was surprised how fun it was. Some nice historic photos, recreations and fun recycling education areas. You could easily spend an hour here and is good mixed with a visit to nearby cafes.

Really good place to visit to get an overview of the history of Helsinki. The exhibits have English translation so that's nice. The gift shop is also worth the checking out, the sauna bad sign gave us a good chuckle. Staff was super friendly and helpful. During our visit they had a temporary exhibit about recycling with a cool art piece.

Small but nice. Interesting things to see and everything is very well explained. All corners have an insteresting explanation you can read. It's free and you don't have to book in advance, you just go and see.

Free admission Small four story building Good to spend 20-30 minutes to learn about the city of Helsinki

Well laid out exhibitions, friendly staff and a great selection of postcards and other bits in the gift shop. Particularly happy to see a section of the 2025 iteration of ‘Helsinki Bites’ is dedicated to the Helsinki skateboarding scene. It is so important to put focus on a subculture who create their own version of a city, including DIY spaces/‘third places’ such as the Suvilahti DIY skatepark, as well as decades of photography, film & art through skateboarding. And curated by a skateboarder, collaborating with other local skaters is key. The museum is free, always, which is how art & culture should be. This is great use of whatever funding is given to sustain this museum. Amazing to see a dedicated photography archive room, too. I also really enjoyed the historic photo installations on electric boxes around the city!

Super cool museum smack downtown (I think). It's in the square by the cathedral and was a great spot to both wind down and get some energy out on a long sunny day, and an even better place to hunker down when it was a rainy day later in the week. Our primary purpose was the kids area as we had three kiddos that desperately needed some play and imagination time after walking the city for some time. They've got a whole section for the kiddos with lots of stuff to jump around and climb on, an old kitchen where play food lives and a small stage where they can put on puppet shows. There's another area where they house classic toys - sort of a tease to have them displayed but not let the kids play with them, but they're fun to look at! Entry was free and there appeared to be plenty of other stuff to check out throughout the place. Stroller parking is outside but easily seen from the kids area and there's a coffee shop right off the main entryway. There's really no reason to not be checking this place out, especially if the kiddos are in tow!

Wonderful little museum! I really enjoyed learning about the history of Helsinki in this beautiful little museum. The exhibitions are all really well done, with some interactive pieces, and a fresh take on museums. I especially loved the time machine! Absolutely worth the visit, great for adults and children.

If you're looking for the city museum, this is it. The entrance is always free and it features rotating exhibitions having to do with Helsinki. On my visit, I saw "Mad About Helsinki," which was about places in the city that people have always had a connection with, and explanations about what makes them special or relevant even today. It was interesting to find out about places that no longer exist (such as the mermaid tanks) as well as spots that remain favorites to this day (like Cafe Regatta). In addition to two floors of this exhibition, there was also a room featuring photography from the city during the early 20th century. All in all, it took less than an hour to see everything, and it was nice to have some added context. if you're going to be in town for more than a few days, it's worth checking the museum out.

Interesting collection of film lore from Finland. It is a part of a series of city museums in Helsinki. It probably will take only an hour to go through its collection unless you decide to sit and watch all the film clips which might be a way to brush up on your Finnish.

Sure, it's free but there really isn't much to see. It's not obvious to find - down a cobbled street, sort of opposite Helsinki Cathedral, off Senate Square. There are two floors and it's a modern museum with video and all that but there just isn't actually very much inside.