Magnificent International Interest around New Norwegian Tourist Attraction

0
2921
Magnificent International Interest around New Norwegian Tourist Attraction

Western Norway’s capital, Bergen, is known for attractions such as Bryggen, the Fish Market and Edvard Grieg’s Trollhaugen. Last June Fløybanen funicular invited to a national architectural competition to create a so-called hot spot, in the midst of the popular Fløy mountain.

Magnificent International Interest around New Norwegian Tourist Attraction
Flojen Experience

“Bergen has many proud and venerable attractions, but we think we need something modern that violate our traditional tourist destination. The location is quite deliberate. Many large cities have parks with great focal point and meeting places. In Bergen we have our own Central Park in the mountains, and we want to create something new that will create awareness among all our visitors,” says Anita Nybø, CEO of the funicular.

National architectural competition
Fløybanen AS is responsible for one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions with over 1.6 million visitors. The background for initiating the exciting design project was to engage prospective architects to design a so-called hot spot, a building that will serve as a year-round meeting place and warm living room. This will be immersed in nature, located just off the water Skomakerdiket. Among the criteria to win the coveted competition is that the building has high attractiveness and makes minimally invasive procedure on the encircling scenery.

Magnificent International Interest around New Norwegian Tourist Attraction
Flojen Hot-Spot

“Our goal was to get the best in architectural industry to participate in the competition, and we are inspired by the work of the National Tourist Routes. They have managed to create projects of international renown. When the deadline for submission went out 71 different projects were received,” says, Geir Brekke chairman of Bergen Architects, who was also a member of the jury. “This is amazing,” he adds.

New promising competitors wanted
Old and new talents, regardless of experience, have participated.

“We realize that Norwegian architecture creates attention. Great projects, such as the Viewpoint on Dovrefjell, have rapidly become a national symbol. Our goal is to design the finest meeting, a proper international hot spot,” says Nybø.

Magnificent International Interest around New Norwegian Tourist Attraction
The project contains space for exhibition, experience and exploration, conference auditorium, café, shop and administration and workshop for the Fløibanen

Eight selected projects will be awarded
The submitted proposals were essentially well planned and maintained a high academic standard, and there was no easy job for the jury. But after painstaking and intense work, the jury has picked out a winner, one second place and one third place.

Based on the wide range of responses and the breadth of proposals for different solutions, the jury decided to purchase another five projects to show the great scope of the submitted projects.

The winners are:

  1. Helen & Hard AS, Oslo
  2. White architects in collaboration with maple architecture, Oslo
  3. Prepared by / team; Henrik Widt Kristiansen, Carl Patrik Larsson, Tomas Rønhovde

The winning competition entry for a new experience and exploration center at Fløien, Bergen, Helen & Hard’s concept focuses on the integration of the experiential, the pedagogical and the explorative aspects of the building.

Magnificent International Interest around New Norwegian Tourist Attraction
Floien view-point

From the city center, a cable railway takes the visitor 350 m up to Fløien, a lookout point, overlooking the whole city. The structure of the building consists of two parts: one blasted into the ground/rock, and the other as a light, transparent volume of prefabricated, wooden frames.

The project contains space for exhibition, experience and exploration, conference auditorium, café, shop and administration and workshop for the Fløibanen. A track leads you through the entire building, and the information exchange is integrated in the architectonic solutions. The building has energy-saving equipment as bio-fuel heating, solar panels and a hybrid ventilation system.

Feature image (on top) Floien view-point by night

Magnificent International Interest around New Norwegian Tourist Attraction, written by Admin

Previous article12 Scandinavian Universities Rank among the 300 Best in the World
Next articleScandinavian Sporting Heroes
Avatar photo
Journalist, PR and marketing consultant Tor Kjolberg has several degrees in marketing management. He started out as a marketing manager in Scandinavian companies and his last engagement before going solo was as director in one of Norway’s largest corporations. Tor realized early on that writing engaging stories was more efficient and far cheaper than paying for ads. He wrote hundreds of articles on products and services offered by the companies he worked for. Thus, he was attuned to the fact that storytelling was his passion.