Sverre Fehn’s IVAR AASEN CENTRE

Sverre Fehn completed his striking building at the Ivar Aasen Centre in 2000, on the farm where Ivar Aasen was born. Housing exhibition spaces, offices, an auditorium and a restaurant, the building celebrates Aasen’s journeys through Norway in the 19th century, and his creation of the written Nynorsk language, based on living dialects. The building is a remarkable example of form following function: Fehn wrote that “the space takes the form of entering between the pages of a book”. Fehn employed his trademark materials throughout: beautifully crafted shuttered concrete, warm wood and glass.

Ivar Aasen Centre, Orsta, Norway. Architect: Sverre Fehn, 2000.

© David Borland