Project: Double house Goksøyr/Engen&Lohne, architect Knut Hjeltnes Architects

Omtale

Few other Norwegian architects have so passionately admitted debt to Japanese architectural culture. Knut Hjeltnes also unashamedly swears allegiance to Nordic modernism. This might come as a surprise when one studies his work, as it is by no means about copying. Hjeltnes combines astonishingly compact spatial organizations of program with a sensibility of structure and tectonic richness. In every commission his incremental experimentation steadily expands this vocabulary, with little fuzz, somewhat like a humble samurai who underplays his abilities. As Francesca Iarrusso states in her essay: “In Godals vei, multiple worlds converge: the measured essentiality of Norwegian functionalism, the compositional and relational lightness of Eastern spatial traditions, and the subversive potential that tradition itself can conceal.”