Aurland Lookout

designed by Todd Saunders + Tommie Wilhelmsen /

Location: Norway / Norway Tourist Routes / Type: Bridges and Piers / Look-outs / Built:
Show on Google Maps / Published on September 21, 2010

Design: Todd Saunders & Tommie Wilhelmsen
Location: Aurland, Norway
Completed: 2005
Area: 120m²
Project is a part of a ‘National tourist routes‘ project.

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Jonas Dahlberg: "An emotional observation informs my overall concept. During the initial site visit to Utøya, I noticed how different the feeling was of walking outside in nature, compared to the feeling of walking through the rooms of the main building. The experience of seeing the vacant rooms and the traces of extreme violence brought me—and others around me—to a state of profound sadness. In its current state, the building kept close within it the memory of the terror acts of July 22, 2011. Like an open wound."

The Dark Line is a former railway that, for most of the 20th century, served as the main transport route for coal to nearby ports. After the closure of the mines, the area, due to its scenic qualities, became increasingly popular with visitors. Now the Dark Line is a part of the tourism infrastructure emphasising the area's industrial heritage.
The Dark Line is a generous, confident and yet careful intervention that materialises through a sequence of uniquely moulded rebars. The choice of the material fits the postindustrial site and handles all topographical anatomies, the site's historical charge and its purpose seemingly effortlessly. Complementing the lush green vegetation, the dark brown steel carries a dense atmosphere along the former railway and beautifully balances the transitional character of this space with a sequence of ambiences where one can stop, rest and observe.
From a phenomenological perspective, the rebars are, essentially, materialised cross-sections that outline the elements such as fences, benches, and pavement. Elements are described by shaping the rebars as if they exist only through a series of descriptions.
Besides the well-crafted material, the jury appreciates how masterfully the designers embraced and responded to simple spatial facts that often go ignored in landscape architecture, those concerning the shifting conditions of light, surrounding vegetation, morphology and cultural memory.
The jury finds the Dark Line project as a sublime intervention that respects the local ecology and greatly enriches the site's functional, historical and aesthetical dimensions with incredible charisma and grace.

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