London-based architecture practice drdharchitects have been recently announced as winners of an invited international competition for the design of two public buildings, a Concert Hall and City Library, for the Norwegian City of Bodo.

The Bodo Kulturhus and Library will consist of two public buildings; a new city library (5,500m²) and a three-auditorium concert hall (7,350m²), creating a new cultural center for the Norwegian coastal city.

drdharchitects beat five other practices to win the invited competition, including CF Moller, Medplan, General Architecture, Langdon Reis Zahn and Lundgaard & Tranberg.

On winning the competition, practice director Daniel Rosbottom said,‘These are the last two sites left in the urban center of Bodo, following the WWII bombing which devastated the city. We are, in effect, completing the reconstruction through the building of a new cultural heart. It is a great honor to be given such a responsibility.’

Director David Howarth said, ‘We made over 50 iterations of the scheme to get the balance of urban and programmatic concerns right. It was very important for us that the buildings feel in scale with their surroundings and that they can mediate between old and new; whilst having the monumental quality that a civic building needs.’

Odd-Tore Fygle, mayor of Bodo and jury member, said, ‘We believe this is a building that will fit very well into this part of Bodo… It is very inviting. When you go down Storgata, you will really want to go into it.’

Bodo is situated north of the Arctic Circle and is capital of the Nordland region of Norway. The practice qualified for the Kulturhus and Library project after placing joint first in a previous open competition for a cultural masterplan for the Bodo harbor area, in which 93 practices participated.

Description of the scheme

‘The buildings have a figurative quality; two distinct but related characters, engaged in conversation with each other, and with their urban and harbor contexts. Together they form the new cultural heart of the city of Bodo.

The geometries of each building plan adjust in response to variations in the grain of the city fabric. The main entrance façade of the Kulturhus is inflected to form a hinge in the shifting line of the street, whilst the waterfront façade of the library adjusts to the line of the harbor wall, recalling both the shed like nature of harbor-side structures and the civic qualities of a temple or basilica.

The interior public spaces of the Kulturhus are planned to take advantage of expansive views across the harbor. From the principal foyer space of the Kulturhus, the shaped roof of the Bibliotek can be seen, forming a horizon to the sea and the mountains beyond. Arriving by boat, the buildings present themselves almost as a single piece; a ‘hill’ of gabled forms, perspectively receding like a theater set; glittering on a sunny day.’