Visionary Arctic 2011

February 4, Friday
09.00 – 17.00
Thon Hotel

Where is Norway in relation to the other countries around the North Pole? Why is the industrial development at its peak, while the settling level is very low in the High North? Do we primarily cultivate the Arctic nature or do we also aim at developing urban qualities? Visionary Arctic 2011 has focus on sustainable architecture in the north and its impact on life quality.

Program:
Part 1: Mind the Map! Futuristic Visions
Linda B. Randal: opening speech.
Eirik Newth, writer, blogger and astrophysicist, Oslo: “Norway among the NORCs – our future in the Arctic”.
Hans Wilhelm Longva, lawyer and diplomat, Oslo: “The High North, Africa and the Law of the Sea. Some reflections on experience in the High North for African policy making”.

Part 2: North Seen from Outside
Lars Ramberg, artist, Berlin: “Criticism as patriotism”.
Ilya Mukosey, architect, Moscow: “Look from the outside. Arctic as the area of permanent challenge. The man and the nature. Who’s the master?”

Part 3: Architecture – Arctic Texture
Reiulf Ramstad, Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter, Oslo: ”Transforming landscapes”.
Sami Rintala, architect, Bodø: “You Better Knock on Wood”.
Jan Gunnar Skjeldsøy, architect, and Christian Hummelsund Voie, eco-criticismresearcher: “Space Calendar project; a new nature in the discussion of space and place”
Ina Bakka Sem-Olsen, Olafia Zoega, Anette Basso, architects, Bergen: “Uncover the Arctic: global effect, subjective effect. Arctic conditions instigated by the energy of tipping points.”

The seminar is part of the Year of Architecture 2011.

Eirik Newth is a writer, blogger and media personality. He took an academic MSc degree in astrophysics at Oslo University in 1989. Since 1990 he has been working fulltime as a writer and communicator of natural science for a wide audience. Eirik Newth has written more than 2300 blog entries and 350 articles, as well as published 20 books, that were translated into 17 languages. He has written a number of popular science books for children, and has been program director in the popular science radio show Superstreng. Recently Eirik Newth has been engaged in future science. He has a blog dedicated to thoughts about the future and scenarios.

Hans Wilhelm Longva is a Norwegian lawyer and diplomat. He is especially known for his role in the Middle East diplomacy, and has been the Norwegian Ambassador to Kuwait (1984-1991), Ankara (2001-2006), and Damascus and Beirut (2006-2008). As Director General of the Legal Department of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry he was heading the Norwegian team to the negotiations between Russia and Norway on maritime delimitation in the Barents Sea from 1995 to 2002. He is now Special Advisor and Ambassadeur en Mission Spéciale in the Legal Department of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. His mission is to assist coastal countries of Africa in the matters of Law of the Sea, especially when it comes to the determination of the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.

Ilya Mukosey
Architect, graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute in 1996. Partner at PlanAR architecture studio, Moscow. Supervisor for the Energy Theme at the Strelka Institute (Moscow) educational program (2010-2011). Mukosey is also a writer for Russian architectural periodicals, and occasionally works as object designer. In this field his main interest lies in disposables, recycling and unusual utilization of materials.

Reiulf Daniel Ramstad
Dottore in Architettura / Sivilarkitekt MNAL. Graduated from Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, Italia 1991. Between 1991 and 1995 he worked as assistant professor, lecturer, and thesis advisor at the faculty of Architecture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Reiulf Ramstad is the principal owner and managing director in Reiulf Ramstad Architects (RRA), which was established as a firm in 1995. RRA has received many awards for their projects in Norway. The studio describes their way of architecture as “distinguished by innovative tectonic forms that interpret the spatial continuity between exterior and interior landscapes in new way”. RRA are especially known for their focus on the Norwegian landscape in their architectural works.

Sami Rintala
Sami Rintala is a Bodø-based architect working for Rintala Eggertsson Architects, also acting as professor of architecture in NTNU Trondheim. His work is a combination of art works, teaching and architecture, always seeking a balance between the site-specific, the conceptual and the ecological.

Jan Gunnar Skjeldsøy / Christian Hummelsund Voie: Space Calendar
A union of inner and outer landscapes may well at one time have been humankind’s natural condition. Today, however, we need strategies for opening the way back. What you see is almost always culturally conditioned, and for modern men or women this can be a form of blindness. Sometimes people need to be shown how to perceive the elements that are outside everyday categories, and this is a function uniquely suited to architecture. The eye can profitably be guided, not through homogenising dogmatism, but through an architecture that suggests and illuminates, that prods the mind out of its rut and creates a space for the individual to stand observantly in the presence of nature, outside of his or her cultural programming.
On those terms the Space Calendar Project try to imitate a new nature through observation/ motivation/ attitude. Work in progress.

Uncover the Arctic
The race for the Arctic has begun, and there are many crucial tipping points existing in the meeting between the global interest and the local interest and communities. Our main focus is on the communities bordering the Arctic. We look at places that are slowly disappearing and others that are growing. The arctic towns and settlements in different stages of their lifespan. What differentiates them? What links them?
1/ Expectations: Maniitsoq (GL) – industrializing the pristine; 2/ Recovery: Reykjavik (IS) – overcoming the financial crisis; 3/Prospects: Vardø (NO) – from peripheral to central mentality; 4/ Post effect: Nikel (RU) – retrieving position.
Four different stories with a common ground: living and building in the Arctic. It´s rigid, cold, colourful, vulcanic, covered in ice, filled with possibilities, deprived of hope… and the possibilities are endless!

Lars Ramberg
Lars Ramberg is an artist, born in Norway, currently lives and works in Berlin. He was educated at the National Academy of Fine Art in Oslo. He mainly operates in public space by using existing social and historical material as a platform. His works have been included in numerous group exhibitions, in addition to biennales in Venice and Sao Paolo. Among recent works: the Zweifel installation in Berlin, the Liberté, the newly won competition for the ventilation towers in Bjørvika, Oslo, La Distinction – a relational project to the Edward Munch Museum, Oslo, Benchmark for the Aspen Art Museum, etc.