outhouse by sverre fehn

So you’ve just won the Pritzker Prize and the world’s your oyster. Those big juicy commissions are going to start coming in even faster, you might not even want/need to enter any competitions anymore since people will be asking for you by name now, and for that whole next year you’ll largely be considered the best in the business. That’s why it was very fun to learn that the first project Sverre Fehn worked on after this 1997 Pritzker win was the outhouse below. It’s on the far end of the parking lot connected to his brilliant Norwegian Glacier Museum. As the museum director told us, “I called him and said ‘Congratulations on winning the Pritzker. We need an outhouse. Can you do it?’”


by steve dalehovd




By Steve Delahoyd

His wonderful architecture stays.

...That is a key word for architecture. You have to find a story to tell, which is a difficult thing to do when beginning to work. There is also a danger of the architecture becoming little too literary...

... I experimented a little with concrete. Europe was very interested in that corner where I used big beams. That opened up a new way of thinking about rooms. It is the opposite of Louis Kahn, for whom the principle was where the construction is; there is no light, whereas I was saying that where the construction is, there you find the light. You reverse the philosophical or constructive concept in that way. It is a very simple construction. It is a very simple movement....

Interview with Sverre Fehn 03 02 2009