“El camino es major de la posada”
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
The Trollstingen tourist road is a six hour long drive from Oslo or a four hour journey from Trondhein. Due to their grandeur, the mountains surrounding the area in the centre of Romsdale have been termed Congen (King), Dronningen (Queen) and Bispen (Bishop), a nomenclature which clearly points to the dominant majesty and splendour of these rocky outcrops. This is dramatic scenery focusing on the Stigfossen Waterfall which embellishes the mountainside facing the Isterdalen Valley. Half way through the journey one encounters an even more evocative landscape set between the deep dramatic fjords characteristic of the region. As the road climbs gradually to reach a height of over 800m travellers can enjoy superb views from the Belvedere viewing stop point. This site is only accessible during the summer months and even in this period, at this altitude, one is still likely to encounter layers of snow. During the winter months the climate is constantly inclemently cold making access difficult.
The project which I have recently visited consists of a hotel, restaurant, together with a series of bridges, passageways and waterfalls, all carefully laid out and designed, leading on to a panoramic viewing platform allowing full enjoyment of the extraordinary views. The project designed by Reiulf Daniel Ramstad Architects demonstrates an excellent combination of nature, its panorama and architecture. Reiulf Daniel Ramstad Architects is an architectural studio which has produced a number of interesting projects including the new church in Knarvik, an elegant minimalist work conceived in timber and stone with a particularly interesting play of natural light in its interior. The whole complex consists of a series of spaces dedicated to the visiting tourists who arrive at this still virgin and un-spoilt destination. In the hotel project, Reiulf Daniel Ramstad Architects have carefully modelled the elements of the building in a fascinating and novel relationship with the surrounding landscape, without in any way renouncing to the zeitgeist of our time and the use of contemporary materials. The project focuses on further enhancing of the visual experiences of visitors. Apart from its well mannered adherence to the site and context, this architectural intervention evokes a particularly strong sense of the narrative of the place, while always leading visitors to reach particular and interesting vantage view points.
The complex reflects the architects overall philosophy of exposing tension between local and global, natural and artificial, while always intelligently utilizing all the visual qualities and experiences of the site. This is also an architecture which looks towards the future.
Detailed attention has been given to the use of the different materials, both in terms of their relationship to the site and also bearing in mind their functional aspect to raise each visitors’ experience of the site to the level of a particularly emotional venture. Architecture must clearly distinguish the threshold between the natural and the man-made, especially when the site has the dynamic ‘el camino’ of water flowing to an open sea destination, in contrast to the dramatic static rocky surroundings which may in turn be read as the final ‘posada’.
In the case of this project, it is these various equations between journey and destination which render it a unique architectural spatial and visual experience.
Mario Pisani
