katey in scandinavia: August 3-4, Tuesday-Wednesday

Tuesday, August 3
After such a crazy day yesterday, we were all ready to have something new and different. We began the day with just that! We went to Snohetta’s office, the firm who built the Opera in Oslo. It was an awesome office, with many perks we don’t have in the US. They have a full time cook!! And, they eat lunch together everyday with an unspoken rule that you don’t talk about work. It’s a very collaborative place, similar to SHKS with the partners sitting among the associates. It was great to see what architecture is actually like in another country.

their kitchen!!

We had one last stop in Oslo before heading out. We went to Mortensrud Church by Jensen Skodvin. It was an interesting church, but I really like the landscaping around it. They let the rocks stay as they were and built up around them, as well as had this interesting walk up through the trees to the entry.

After a 4 hour bus ride we landed in Goteborg (Gothenburg). It’s such a pleasant city. We walked around for a few hours to get acclimated to the city. It’s actually kind of nice being back in Sweden, I’m really beginning to notice the differences among the countries. Norway is beautiful but expensive, and now the familiarities of Sweden make me comfortable. I’m just rambling now, but I had a nice day and I’m excited for tomorrow!

Wednesday, August 4
Today was another jammed packed day! We saw the Law Courts Addition by Asplund, Harlanda Church by Peter Celsing, and the Gothenberg Concert Hall by Nils Einar Erickson, all pretty cool places.
I’m sitting here with some of my trip mates and I just asked them what they thought of today (trying to gain some new persepctives). A few responses were, “it was awesome” or, “it was jammed packed with hits.” They also mentioned we should post some non-architectural things for all you readers out there! We didn’t get very far off the subject though. The next comment was “I like this city, it’ss a great small-big city.” It’s really charming, and still has a bigger city feel and I wish we had more time here. Another general consensus is how excited we are for tomorrow. We get to see a very famous church (but I’ll tell you about it tomorrow).

I’ll put mostly pictures today (I think I’ve used all my architecture jargon up). I’ve really been getting into sketching on this portion of the trip. I’ve been doing longer sketches and been practicing my trees!