Snøhetta

From an urban perspective, Lillehammer Art Museum suggests linkages to different scales of context in the formal arrangement of the program elements. The entrance level and public entries have been connected to the orthogonal geometry of the urban surroundings and the adjacent plaza, while the exhibition spaces are related formally to the distant contours of Lillehammer’s softly curved mountains.

The building then relates itself to both characteristics visible from its location and thus becomes a versatile negotiator between immediate and distant contextual conditions. The orthogonal public entrance spaces were designed as transparent as possible, while the softly tilted and curved exhibition spaces were clad with Siberian untreated larch. Natural light is drawn in by integrated lights along the curving geometry of these walls.

These wooden, instrument-like forms later gave the building its local nickname, “the grand piano,” thus unconsciously emphasizing the initial ideas of the museum as a resonance body. The new museum was connected to the existing concrete building with a wide, glazed public bridge. The outdoor spaces or courtyards between the two independent buildings were treated as autonomous pieces of art. The artist Bård Breivik created an intricate collage of stones in the courtyard.

Client
Lillehammer Art Museum

Size
2,700 m2