.jpg.foto.rmedium.png)
Setting out to understand the most profound meaning of the word “environment” and of sense of place, the Norwegian studio Snøhetta tackles the most diverse projects – small shelters, large in-stitutional buildings, graphic design and product design assignments – with an inexplicably “northern” take, capable of finding balance between in the complex relation between natural and human-made landscape.
Founded in Oslo in 1989 by Craig Edward Dykers (Frankfurt, 1961) and Kjetil Trædal Thorsen (Haugesund, 1958), Snøhetta’s first major project was Bibliotheca Alexan-drina in Egypt (1989-2001). The project that really brought them under the international spotlight was the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet (2008) where architecture turns into landscape and public space, and its structural elements, such as the roof and the halls, establish a connection with the city.
Today, the studio counts on 240 employees from 32 different countries, manly based in the Oslo offices but also working in the New York and San Francisco branches: the first opened for the construction of the cultural building in the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pa-vilion (2004-2014), the second for the new extension of the SFMoMA (2010-2016). Other Snøhetta branches are in Innsbruck, Stockholm, Paris and Adelaide.
More than individual buildings, Snøhetta architectures are stories: under, their underwater restau-rant currently being constructed in Lindesnes in the south of Norway, will be set five metres below sea level; Svart, a hotel project that started in 2017 in Svartisen, in collaboration with Arctic Ad-ventures of Norway, Asplan Viak and Skanska, will translate into a circular building set on piles and capable of producing clean energy in the north-European environment; and their Outdoor Care Retreat in Oslo and Kristiansand (2018), small 35 square metre wooden retreats for open-air as-sistance of hospital patients – created in collaboration with the Friluftssykehuset Foundation – aim at restoring balance between body, mind and nature.