HOUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHY | Oslo, Norway | International Competition
# transreal architecture
#super-descriptive #relational #ordinary #holistic #ecological #speculative #figurative #enjoyable #playful #ironic
The project uses the water curtain as an architectural strategy to make explicit the twofold geographical condition of Sukkerbiten: as part of a network of playful uses linked to the fjord along the Havnepromenaden and as the last stage of the Akerselva before merging into the sea water. The water curtain forming Fotografihuset’s façades alludes to the multiple waterfalls that give identity to the Akerselva as well as the wonderful, beautiful and powerful waterfalls characteristic of Norway’s natural landscape – and present in Norse mythology. The waterfall provides the Fotografihuset with a novel natural architectural allegory alternative to those already seen like the fjord, the rock, the iceberg or the glacier around the different cultural spaces of the country. It is, in addition, a much more specific form to the place in which it is based and more modest since it renounces the formal gesture in favour of the phenomenological experience of water, which completely places it in the context of the Havnepromenaden. On the other hand, this architectural strategy of absence in favour of abstraction recognizes the predominance of the Opera and the Munch Museum as architectural landmarks in the Bjørvika landscape.
Following this idea, the interior of both museum buildings takes its shape through the void generated by the outline of a continuous brick wall. This wall refers twofold to a certain industrial past: first, because of its material condition; second, because this void reproduces, in part, the former interstitial space between the old port buildings. Although in the factories along the Akerselva or in the Bjørvika port warehouses the brick walls were in contact with the ground -defining their characteristic exterior image- the Fotografihuset transforms this condition by placing them in the interior or floating over the water curtain when It faces the river on its east facade.
The water curtain becomes not only a place to enjoy the senses -where to wet the body, relax with its sound or simply contemplating it- but also has the ability to become a canvas that multiplies the museum exhibition possibilities. Water, through technology, is considered as a place of interaction between users and the museum and can also catalyze unexpected uses. Likewise, the water curtain, by its presence or absence, can control the entrance and quality of the light as well as the visibility of the museum content from the outside. The Fotografihuset, therefore, uses water not only as an element of cultural significance but as a recreational resource to bring art closer to citizens, especially young people and children, as well as to activate and stage “other” major events.
On the other hand, water, and particularly falling water, is a common resource in the world of photography. Proof of this are the multiple works of Norwegian photographers who take the Akerselva waterfalls as an artistic object. This condition turns the museum, without a doubt, into a resource in itself that will multiply the possibilities in its programming of activities, exhibitions and artistic residencies.
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