Merkki is a new kind of museum and archive for media, news, literacy and freedom of speech.
The Media Museum and Archives Merkki opened to the public on 2 December 2023. Its predecessors were the Päivälehti archives, which was established in the 1990s, and the Päivälehti museum, founded in 2001.
As an interpreter and preserver of the evolving world of media, Merkki provides engaging historical and contemporary content on the phenomena of media. The name Merkki evokes a sense of the joint mission of the museum and archive, which is to promote understanding of the evolving nature of media in people’s lives.
When you arrive at Merkki, you enter the old newsrooms of Helsingin Sanomat. Here, we bring to life the legendary “Ludda” (Ludviginkatu) newspaper quarters, the noisy and lively hub of the early days of Finnish journalism.
Merkki is maintained by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, which was founded in 2005 in a merger of the Päivälehti Archive Foundation and the Helsingin Sanomat Centenary Foundation. The foundation promotes journalism and freedom of speech.
During their existence, Merkki and its predecessors have served thousands of media historians and researchers and more than a million museum visitors. We have organised nearly one hundred special exhibitions to date and will continue the work now under one roof.