Our entry to the Estonian Academy of Art competition is a burst of colour on the Tallinn skyline, complementing the forms of the Old Town. Amid the grey or metallic buildings that surround it, it offers a new kind of brightness: its skin (or glass fur as we call it) is comprised of panels of coloured glass that reflect onto the surroundings.

The massing of the building responds directly to the various conditions of the city: the industrial harbour, the historic Old Town, the activity of Maakri, the new development of the Rotermann Quarter. The internal organization of the building is one seamless Gallery Path, 10m wide by 10m high, connecting all the parts of the building together, and connecting the building back to the city. Its entire length is meant to be filled with activity, with art. The artistic life of the EAA is not separate from its daily traffic—they are one and the same.

This Gallery Path constantly reorients you to the various districts of Tallinn. A ramp folds back on itself twice. At the first landing, you face Maakri and the pedestrian commercial street. At the second, you face the harbour. At the third, you have a large framed view toward Old Town. And, finally, the path turns upward toward the Baltic Sky, pulling light down through the voids.