Artist home
Virtual Ainola
Ainola served as a home to Finland’s national composer Jean Sibelius and his family. In 1974, the downstairs and the beautiful grounds opened up to visitors. 50 years later, in 2024, the upstairs became available – as Virtual Ainola.
Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) is known as Finland’s national composer, who contributed to shaping the Finnish national identity at the turn of the 20th century. For the latter part of his life he lived in Ainola, named after his wife Aino Sibelius née Järnefelt (1871–1969).
The family followed Aino’s older brother, painter Eero Järnefelt to join the artist community being built on the shores of Lake Tuusula. The Ainola residence was completed in 1904 and served as a home to the Sibelius family until Aino’s death in 1969.
As per Aino’s wish, the residence was turned into a museum, which opened in 1974. It is owned by the Finnish government and operated by the Ainola Foundation.
Due to fire safety issues, the upstairs rooms of Ainola are closed to visitors. However, as a part of Virtual Museum Muste, you can visit Jean Sibelius’ studio and Aino’s bedroom virtually!
Virtual Ainola is a photorealistic 3D model of the rooms, which has been created using photogrammetry. This means that the space has been thoroughly photographed from three different heights, resulting in 5000 photographs. These have been brought into the Reality Capture software, which compiles the photos and creates a rough 3D space. The resulting space has been optimised – flattened and hand-sculpted – in Blender software and the photo textures projected over the new surfaces. Lastly, the outside view has been added using a 360-degree photo in Unity.
The Virtual Ainola experience lets audiences explore the studio and bedroom and learn more about Sibelius family’s life and surroundings. The experience works best on VR headsets, but is currently available as a browser-based demo. The demo works on computers, not on mobile devices.
The demo is also available in 4K resolution. This version has higher graphics and requires newer devices.
Virtual Ainola has been created in collaboration with the Ainola foundation.
Ainola is open to visitors during the summer months. Find up-to-date information regarding the museum’s opening hours and book your guided tour on Ainola’s website.