Client
Åseral Municipality
Function
Museum, cultural centre, cafeteria
Discipline
Architect, interior designer, responsible applicant
In 2007, Ratio won the limited planning and design competition for a museum and cultural meeting place in the mountain municipality of Åseral in Agder. Minne cultural centre opened to the public in 2010. It is located in an old apple garden in the Kyrkejbygd municipal centre, in close proximity to Åseral church.
The building forms a framework around a thematic exhibit, with tableaus telling the story of Åseral from the age of migration (the best-preserved settlement ruin from this period in Scandinavia is found at Sosterli in Åseral) through dramatic war history until our time, with hydroelectric power development and mountain tourism. The exhibit is extended by a satellite for the Vest-Agder Museum, with local findings loaned from the University Museum of Antiquities at the University of Oslo. Minne cultural centre also hosts the annual village exhibit.
The building is located next to a small hill, surrounded by remnants of the old cultivated landscape; pastures, stone fences, apple garden. Two elongated building volumes across the terrain are connected by a lower middle link and a tall, cone-shaped volume in cast-in-place concrete. The cone signals the building at a distance, and contains the hydropower exhibit. A glass-covered bridge cutting through the cone room marks the start of the public walk following a spiral movement through the two floors of the building and the various tableaus of the exhibit. The stairs between the floors are shaped as an amphitheatre for concerts, shows and lectures. Parts of the large room can be closed off on both floors, for chamber concerts, meetings, film screenings and other smaller events. The cafeteria is facing a sunny terrace between the building and the hill. A large stone slab taken down from the mountain forms an outdoor stage in a natural outdoor amphitheatre.
The building is constructed in concrete and supporting wood, with exterior cladding in ferric sulphate-treated aspen and dry-walled stone cladding in Høgvåg slate, with windows, furnishings and exterior cladding of the cone in natural anodised aluminium. The main material in the interior is ground concrete floors with added white stone, smooth edged panels on the walls and acoustic wooden beam ceiling.
The building was completed within budget and agreed progress, and it has become an important gathering arena for permanent residents and visitors, with a cafeteria, changing exhibits and an active cultural programme.
