New ways Through the last two decades there has been an interesting forum in Tromsø for planning and architectural design related to aspects of living in the north. Tromsø is a town situated close to 70ºN and about 500 km north of the Arctic circle. Some of the best examples of contemporary work show the will to use architecture as a tool for discovering, uncovering and expressing the qualities of life, both individual and social, related to this special geograph- ical and cultural context. Not as style, not houses as objects without context, but as relevant physical and poetic answers to the problems and potentials of our time. To do so —to see what is relevant, we must know what to look for, and have the skill and the urge to make the hidden pos- sibilities of time and place visible through architecture.
Competition project for a Church. 1997,Tromsø 70ºN architecture
The Loekken cabin. 2000, Tromsø Gisle Loekken, 70ºN
Bjorn Otto Braaten, is an associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Fine arts, Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He has spent 13 years in Tromsø, a Norwegian town situated 500 km north of the Arctic circle at 69.7ºN. From 1995-2000 he was a member of 70ºN arkitektur, a studio based on the idea of combining modern architecture with the potential of the specific geographical context on 70ºN.
On Site review 11
18
Spring 2004
Architecture of the Circumpolar Region
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