Architect: Reiulf Ramstad Architects, Oslo Norway (RRA)
Project Team: Reiulf D Ramstad, Christian Fuglset, Anja Strandskogen, Christian Dahle, Nok Nimakorn (all Architects MNAL)
Location: Romsdalen – Geiranger Fjord, Norway
Client: The Norwegian Public Roads Administration
Design year: 2004-2010, Official Opening 2011
Building area: 800 m2 (Mountain Lodge with restaurant and gallery)
Site: Building Site 600,000 m2
Type of construction: Cor-ten steel and poured-in-place concrete
Photographs: Reiulf Ramstad Architects, Oslo Norway
Illustration: MIR and RRA
Norway-based firm Reiulf Ramstad Architects has designed a Trollstigen National Tourist Route Project located in Romsdalen – Geiranger Fjord, Norway. Trollstigen is one of the most popular tourist-attractions in Norway which is surrounded by the majestic mountains.
Project description courtesy of Reiulf Ramstad Architects
The architecture is to be characterised by clear and precise transitions between planned zones and the natural landscape. Through the notion of water as a dynamic element –from snow, to running and then falling water- and rock as a static element, the project creates a series of prepositional relations that describe and magnify the unique spatiality of the site.
Located on Norway’s west coast, Trollstigen is perched within a dramatic pass between the deep fjords that characterize the region. This panoramic site can only be visited and constructed in summer, due to severe winter weather. Despite—or perhaps because of—the inaccessible nature of the site, the project entails designing an entire visitor environment ranging from a mountain lodge with restaurant and gallery to flood barriers, water cascades, bridges, and paths to outdoor furniture and pavilions and platforms meant for viewing the scenery. All of these elements are molded into the landscape so that the visitor’s experience of place seems even more intimate. The architectural intervention is respectfully delicate, and was conceived as a thin thread that guides visitors from one stunning overlook to another.
