The Atlantic Road on Norway’s west coast is like a real-life rollercoaster hopping from island to island along the outermost edge of the coast. The most distinctive features of the Atlantic Road, runs between Bud and Kårvåg. Columna Transatlantica is a sculptural work, situated by the Atlantic road.
According to Norwegian artist Jan Freuchen, Columna Transatlantica is a reminder of how Norway through history has used the seaway to communicate with the outside world. The sculpture is made of about 40 elements of white marble laid out across a stretch of 90 meters by the ocean.
The Atlantic Road is one of Norway’s 18 official national tourist routes. It opened in 1989 and was voted “Norway’s Engineering Feat of the Century” in 2005.
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“Our country and culture is the result of communication with the countries with which we share the same ocean,” says Freuchen. The artist’s disposition and direction of the different elements suggests that the individual elements were at some point connected into one continuous piece. It has become an important work along a road many consider as one of the world’s most beautiful drives.
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The artwork of “Columna Transatlantica” is about communication, and the shape of the sculptures can give associations to a broken Greek column, but its sharp profile, spaghetti-like and seemingly soft shapes simultaneously suggests otherwise: The ornamental character of Columna Transatlantica can also look like whipped cream from a cream dispenser, from a futile attempt to decorate and beautify the pristine landscape of Vevang.
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Some has said it looks like toothpaste. Others have called it Norway’s ugliest tourist attraction. However, the artwork consists of 40 marble elements that have been placed in a winding and broken line on the islets at the edge of the sea. «Columna Transatlantica» is the result of a competition held in 2013, which was won by Jan Freuchen.
Freuchen’s work has also turned into a book.
Columna Transatlantica in Norway, written by Tor Kjolberg