High up on Yliopistonmäki hill, the new Faculty of Science and Engineering of Åbo Akademi University and the Department of Chemistry of the University of Turku have taken shape. A historic area that houses the city’s cathedral, an observatory, and a cathedral school dating from the 13th century.

With its modern laboratories, the new building has been integrated into the city structure through a façade of the same material as the surrounding buildings designed by the architect Aarne Ervi in the 1950s.

At the entrance, visitors are greeted by an arched wood pine wall that leads into the building’s atrium and presents a meeting between wood and gold. The lobby, like large parts of the open spaces in the building, is decorated with batten while information signs, door handles, and chair legs reappear in different shades of gold.

The name Aurum, which was decided by a public naming contest, derives from the Latin word for gold and refers to the scientific profile found in the building. In the light of the same background, lecture halls were named after chemical elements and prominent figures in science.