iceploitation

Exhibition opening tonight at Tromsø kunstforening - go see artistic explorations of the polar archives.

greenery

Tom Lien who runs an ecologic garden talks about plants, greenhouses and compost at Tromsø Kunstforening, Muségata 3 - Monday 21 March at 19.00.

Triple Towers at Hotdog

Art academy student Erlend Grevskott presents Triple Towers, an exhibition at Hotdog Kulturkiosk from sunset to sunrise during a week from today.
(The pics are from an earlier installation at Hotdog.)

letter from Tokyo, March 2011

We received these words from the PechaKucha head-quarter in Tokyo this week-end:

Dear PechaKucha Night organizers around the world,

We knew it had to happen sometime and here we are with an 8.8 earthquake, the biggest ever in Japan.

But we are all safe at PechaKucha HQ in Tokyo. Thank you for all you messages - we really appreciate it.

Central Tokyo was lucky, only light damage, but as you will see from the TV news the coastline has been devastated. We are trying to get in touch with the PKN organizers in Sendai - very close to the epicenter - and Nagano, but had no replies yet.

Our thoughts our with the whole country.

Astrid, Mark, Tomoko and Jean


..and our thought are with you..


PKN points this info page if you want to know how to help: ultrasupernew. And Morten, one of our fellow organizers of PKN Tromsø, posted a few words on his blog this week-end.

pics from Montréal

Thank you Alessandra for the pics from the Phyllis Lambert seminar!

Strandpromenade Sunday

Kulta, Juell Group, Haugen sisters, Johnny Espen Cash, fire-jugglers and more made yesterday's windy walk an extraordinary experience - pointing out the importance and possibilities of Tromsø's connection to the water.

ArchitecTOUR

Nouvelles Cartographies du Nord

We are happy to be invited to the Phyllis Lambert seminar at Université de Montréal February 25-26. Under the conference theme New Northern Cartographies we will present Impacts of global pressure on vulnerable landscapes and societies: planning for unknown futures in Maniitsoq, Greenland.

New Northern Cartographies
Conception and organisation : Alessandra Ponte

“Il y a tant de nords dans ce Nord” (There are many norths in this North). Thus wrote the great Québécois geographer Louis‐Edmond Hamelin in Nordicité canadienne (1975). The remark summarized his brilliant reconfiguration of the Canadian North. Hamelin graded ten geographical and human factors ‐ latitude, summer heat, annual cold, types of ice, precipitation, vegetation cover, land or sea accessibility, air service, population, economic activity ‐ on the scale of 0‐100 (100 representing extreme nordicity). The sum of the ten elements indicated the VAPO (Valeur polaires, polar values) of a region, with the North Pole reaching a VAPO of 1000. On this basis, Hamelin proposed a redefinition of the Canadian North in Extreme North, Far North, Middle North, and Near North. Thus an incredibly vast and vaguely defined geographical entity was reduced to a series of manageable regions open to transformation. Hamelin also identified and defined processes of “nordification” and “denordification”. Major technological investments could diminish drastically the degree of nordicity of a region, while a locality could undergo a process of brutal nordification when mining or other industrial activities were suspended. Hamelin’s method was inspired by the criteria applied by Russian engineers in order to better identify the regional, local, or punctual realities of the Siberian continent. In both cases, the Nordicity Index, indicating the degree of the investment of the government in a region assumed a charged political connotation and heralded the idea of a “voluntary geography”, or the radical transformation of once uninhabitable territories thanks to the technological harnessing of a previously forbidding “Nature”.

The works of Hamelin and of Russian scientists appeared at the end of more than three decades of powerful efforts of militarization and modernization of the Arctic regions. The awareness of the strategic importance of the North began during WWII and reinforced throughout the Cold War, stimulated the deployment of massive resources for the building of vast transportation networks, spectacular military installations, and ambitious permanent settlement. This vigorous activity did not escape the attention of intellectuals, architects and artists that, during the Sixties and the Seventies, produced a plethora of provoking proposals or poignant commentaries addressing the massive changes taking place in the once remote and romantic North.

During the last two decades, the end of the Cold War and subsequent realignment of the balance of powers, together with massive climate changes, have in fact redefined, once again, the map of the Arctic region and rekindled a passionate interest in the North. The proposal is that the 2011 Phyllis Lambert Seminar will take the form of a colloquium, to be held at the École d’architecture, Université de Montréal, February 25‐26, 2011. Architects, artists, film makers, geographers, and climatologists will be asked to participate.

Click for program and poster pdf:s.

After Arctic Frontiers

The article by Gisle in today's Nordlys suggests how a mix of rationality and myth could bring new ways of evaluation of northern landscapes.

The Myth is dying. It is about to be defeated. There is a war between two worlds: Rationality and Myth.
(Adorno with Horkheimer)

Strandpromenaden in Nordlys

Strandpromenaden in iTromsø

Instantanés d’architecture

Gisle gives a lecture at Musée de la civilisation in Québec today February 24 at 17.30, invited by l'École d'architecture, Université Laval, in their lecture series Instantanés d’architecture.
The 10 themes above linked to 15 (here invisible) projects by the 35 lines, are the instantanés d'architecture he has brought this time..

paraboloid pic

Per Ivar Somby sent us some of his photos from the Landscapes in Change conference - thanks!

strandpromenaden

Sunday February 27 at 16.30 everybody is welcome to experience Tromsø strandpromenad in a new way.

Hovig north

The exhibition HOVIG I NORD opens at Tromsø kunstforening this Friday February 25 at 20.00. 18 photographies of Jan Inge Hovig's works in Northern Norway by Bent Raanes Sørensen and Sarah Cameron Sørensen show detailed interpretations of the his extraordinary modernist post war architecture.

Photo: Alfheim (2011) by Bent Raanes Sørensen and Sarah Cameron Sørensen

barcelona film

As part of the year of architecture Cinemateket in collaboration with the Northern Norway Architect Association are screening two award winning films from Barcelona tonight:
En Construcción by José Luis Guerín
Bamboleho by Luis Prieto

An introduction will be given by Tone Huse, human geographer specialized in gentrification.
Verdensteatret, February 22 at 18.00 - read more here.

cold preparations

Some preparations for the sea front walk event taking place February 27 - be there to rediscover and experience the Tromsø shoreline in a new way..

Fairy tale

The kindergarten is on the cover and presented in a three spread article in the chinese magazine Interior Design #06 2010.

raj raj

Jelena Kalicanin of the serbian design and architecture magazine Kuća stil visited us some time ago. Today we received her article presenting the cabin as norveški raj (norwegian paradise).

still life

The Sami people's day, February 6, was marked by the opening of the installation Still Life by Peder Istad in Kvalsund, Finnmark. An empty gjenreisningshus, once built for a sami family, has been surrounded by an ice wall. A live camera will let us watch it melt during spring..

Qujanaq Grazie Thank you Takk Merci Tack

We are absolutely happy about the Landscapes in Change conference and grateful to our invited guests who made the day highly reflective and memorable - above from left to right: Roger Connah (UK/Canada), Alessandra Ponte (Canada), Sara Olsvig (Greenland), Berit Kristoffersen (Norway), Ellen Marie Braae (Denmark), Annika E Nilsson (Sweden), Daniel R Williams (USA), Klaus Dodds (UK) and Catharina Gabrielsson (Sweden).

Esfahan - Shiraz - Rasht - Mashad - Masuleh

Back from Iran, Berit shares some of her impressions with us.

Tipping Points

The Arctic Frontiers conference has started and you can follow it on live web-tv. Our side conference Landscapes in Change will take place Thursday at the library - where the poster is now installed.

fantastic television

Turn on your tv tonight and watch fantastic friends Håkon & Haffner blow up Bergen - to create a city from scratch..
This is the first episode out of six discussing different phenomena in architecture.

2011 blog

Keep updated about Arkitekturens År activities and events in Northern Norway at the blog!

Metropolis

The screening of Fritz Lang's iconic Metropolis during TIFF is the first Arkitekturens år event in Tromsø. This is an extraordinary opportunity to see the full length version of the film together with a live performance concert.

le Quotidien des Architectes #5 - visite de chantier

We went to see one of our projects under construction this week-end, almost finished.. ..more about it soon.

Year of Architecture - here & there & everywhere

Another article by Gisle is published in today's Nordlys, read about the Year of Architecture here. Illustration: Bjørn Hegardt: A dream woke me.

New Year in New York

We got new year greetings from Irene and a snowy New York - thanks and happy new year to you too!

Joar and Berit representing the architect association and the Year of Architecture present some of the events taking place in Tromsø and northern Norway throughout Arkitekturens År 2011 in the newspaper iTromsø January 11.

The Year of Architecture is now officially started: the prime minister has received an architecture guide to the view from his own office window from the hands of the NAL president Kjersti Nerseth, champagne toasts have been proposed at Arkitektenes hus and you can find all about it at the freshly inaugurated Arkitekturens År 2011!

president on the radio

Listen to radio P2 tomorrow Thursday 6 January at 08.05 and hear the norwegian architects' president Kjersti Nerseth present the Year of Architecture 2011.

Landscapes in Change

We are happy to present our collaboration with the annual Arctic Frontiers conference, resulting in the completely new side-conference on northern landscapes - Landscapes in Change:

This year’s Arctic Frontiers conference has the subtitle Arctic Tipping Points, which poignantly describes the actuality of the Northern regions. Several of the themes discussed during Arctic Frontiers have a shared point of departure in large global changes, but approaches the theme from different academic fields as natural science, economy and politics.

In collaboration with Nord-Norges arkitektforening, Husbanken and 70°N arkitektur Landscapes in Change is for the first time presented as a side-event to the Arctic Frontier’s main conference. This year’s debate will focus on Arctic Ecologies: connecting nature, society and ideas, and will be a venue for transversal debate bordering several academic fields. The conference has the ambition to become an annual event for discussion of the inherent vulnerability of arctic landscapes and societies.

As a consequence of the strong powers of change at work in the northern regions, the conference will direct a necessary focus on the physical vulnerability in an arctic ecology that is easily influenced and disturbed. It is equally interesting to discuss the importance of the arctic landscapes – their individual value, as nature and as global icon, or as something that has value principally as an economic resource.

Our aim is that the conference theme will create engaged discussion and will contribute to found the basis for a continued debate that will motivate architects, landscape architects and all who are occupied by the transformations that are both in the cognitive understanding of the high north, and in the physical realities of the Arctic landscapes.

Now more than ever, nature cannot be separated from culture; in order to comprehend the interactions between ecosystems, the mechanosphere and the social and individual Universes of reference, we must learn to think ‘transversally’. Félix Guattari, The Three Ecologies (1989)

Please find out all you need to know about Landscapes in Change at www.arctic-frontiers.com/landscapes, as the program or the list of speakers:
Catharina Gabrielsson (Sweden) - moderator of the debate PhD in critical theory in architecture, architect, researcher, senior lecturer.
Annika E Nilsson (Sweden) PhD in environmental science, Senior Research Fellow.
Sara Olsvig (Greenland) MSc in Anthropology, Human Rights Issues Coordinator.
Daniel R Williams (USA) PhD in forest resources, Research Social Scientist.
Berit Kristoffersen (Norway) MA in Human Geography, Research Fellow.
Alessandra Ponte (Canada) PhD in history and theory of architecture, professeure agrégée.
Klaus Dodds (UK) PhD in Geopolitics and International Relations, Professor of Geopolitics.
Roger Connah (UK / Canada) Writer, film-maker and researcher, Associate Director and Professor in Architecture and Urbanism.
Ellen Braae (Denmark) PhD in landscape architecture and urbanism, Professor in landscape architecture.

More about the Arctic Frontiers conference here.

Happy new year!

This blog apparently took some holiday but we will soon be back to tell you about all the new year's news: new people, new projects, new events and perhaps even some new 70°.. We wish you all a happy new 2011!


Tromsø fireworks pic by Ann Sissel Jenssen

Happy birthday, Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares, 103 today!

(Copan and Memorial da América Latina: pics from our trip to Brazil some years ago)

70° julelunsj

Thanks to all the happy people for joining us for a christmas lunch, and enormous khab kun khaa to Noi for the excellent food and grazie mille Stefano for the best tiramisù ever!

Are there any alternatives?

Read this week's article by Gisle in Nordlys.

Photos: soil erosion in water and wind in the Øresund region, by Bengt Olle Nilsson

åpen klasse

What we see is not what is - as we move through a city, it is easy to believe that what we immediately perceive by our surroundings are true images, but the reality is not objective, and always depends on what we know and what background we have. As actors in the public sphere, we must therefore, develop methods to investigate the reality and to understand and work with the complexities of society. With knowledge about society structures and layers of information, we can work out projects that are relevant to the citizens, and also highlight particular groups in society that are not always given priority in a market-driven economy. With this principle, Magdalena Haggärde of 70°N arkitektur will present methods and studies she uses in her practice and teaching, and show examples of projects that make use of the marginal spaces and engage residents in the democratic processes that confront the question of who has the right to urban spaces and surfaces.

Tromsø Art Academy, Thursday 9 December at 19.00

muddy dummy

This week-end included a visit to Tromsø's newest gallery, 4235, and the 3rd year ArtAc students' vernissage for Dummy - a publication and exhibition. And excellent performance by Mudqueen and Cxzy.

Stockholm S

Folkungagatan/Götgatan + Östgötagatan + Mariatorget

We have spent some days in Stockholm, lecturing and meeting interesting people to plan interesting things.. more info soon.