Sami mountain-settlement,Tromsø
The story of traditional building culture in northern Norway is not a story of refined craftmanship.The detailing does not focus on the smooth surface, but on the connections. And the meaning of the build- ing as object is nothing without understanding its natural and cultural context, which is the use and trading of the resources of the sea. Many small places on this long and icefree coastline had their names on the maps of Europe long before Oslo, the capital of Norway.And still fishery provides one of the main incomes in our country. 150 years ago the typical tradesman of the north read his weekly newspapers from Paris, spoke Danish to his wife, and a mixture of the Russian and Norwegian with his businesspartner of the Pomor trade.The sad and beautiful novel Pan by Knut Hamsun is connected to this context (facing page, below). The racks for drying fish that you can see in every place connected to the fisheries, is the ultimate contextual architectural expression of this area.They are open structures that can be extended when necessary. Landscape, a living, construction and space are integrated through a very simple and precise form. A different conception of place
Moving with their herds of reindeer from the interior where they spend the winter to the coast in the summer, some of the Sami still live in their traditional tents while on the move (above). There is an intricate relationship between the many fireplaces (in Sami, arran ) along the route, the landscape and the paths of the reindeer. The nomadic sense of place is not defined by a physical man-made enclosure, but by fixed points in the surrounding landscape. It is not the tent that establishes the nomadic place, it is the fireplace.
Fishing racks,Tromsø
On Site review 11
17
Spring 2004
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