The Hamsun Centre on Hamarøy is dedicated to Knut Hamsun, one of Norway’s most well-known authors. Opened last year on the author’s 150th birthday, the centre is designed to bring the works, life and contemporary world of Knut Hamsun to the public.
A feather in the architect’s cap
The Hamsun Centre, which the architect’s wife has dubbed “the hairy guy”, is now garnering accolades from abroad. Earlier this year the international journal for design and architecture Wallpaper nominated the Hamsun Centre as the world’s Best New Public Building.
The architect’s vision entails the building as a body, and the body as a “battleground for invisible forces”, as it says in Hamsun’s novel Hunger. The analogy is intended to be rather concrete: the lift in the centre of the building serves as a stabilising spine and the grass on the roof appears to be a scruffy head of hair. Photo: Steven Holl Architects
The Hamsun Centre consists of a library, reading room, cafe, auditorium and exhibition. Photo: Steven Holl ArchitectsThe panel of judges, which included celebrity designer John Galliano and film director Pedro Almodovar, chose the new DR Concert Hall in Copenhagen as the most spectacular public building constructed last year. The Hamsun Centre was ranked among the top five.
New, dynamic attraction
Critics in Norway have been sceptical though, voicing doubts as to whether the building could serve as a dynamic national centre when it is located on an island in one of the least populated regions of Nordland County, with barely 13,000 residents living in the four municipalities close by.
Bodil Børset, the centre’s director, however, has no problem justifying the location, the size of the investment and the relatively small number of visitors expected.
“We are not only targeting the existing tourist traffic. We also plan to organise our own events to attract a public from a much broader visitor segment. The centre will be swarming with activity,” promises Børset.
“My most important building”
What is not widely known is that the centre was actually designed 15 years ago, and according to the architect, it has turned out exactly as he intended.
“I have not changed it one iota,” said architect Steven Holl during the opening of the centre.
“As soon as architecture becomes fashion, you can place the buildings anywhere. The Hamsun Centre is proof of what architecture is all about.”