Promoting wellbeing is a well-established global trend, in which dance plays an ever-increasing role. Yet only very few buildings exist in the world, that are dedicated solely to dance. The Dance House Helsinki is Finland’s first landmark venue promoting dance at both a grassroots and at a professional level.  The Dance House is a new building attached to the former Cable Factory, built in the 1940’s – which is now the Finland’s largest cultural center.

Externally the new facades takes their inspiration from dance, playing with illusions of lightness and heaviness. One reflective and immaterial, another robust with a rusted finish and a third in motion, scattered with iconic steal discs. Internally the building’s industrial aesthetic reads like a machine, – the state-of-the-art black box theatres are its internal engine. The glazed courtyard/entrance foyer, and flexible performance space serves as an important shared public area for the Cable Factory as a whole.

There are two state-of-the-art dance halls dedicated to performance with adjacent green rooms and rehearsal studios.  The main stage “Erkko”, seats 700 and has a capacity for 1000 with a 26m wide and 24m high stage, is the largest performance venue of its type in the Nordic region. The former Cable Factory “Boiler Room” is now home to the second performance hall, accommodating 235 seats and with a capacity for 400. The Dance House also hosts restaurants, a club and administrative offices.

The dancers and performers complete it’s architecture!