Archi­tecture of the ele­ments

The trans­lation of the name of the Faroe Islands sounds like fleece and peace: ‘Sheep Islands’. The fact that the 18 islands can be any­thing but cosy and mild becomes apparent when the ele­ments cele­brate the Faroese interplay. Light, fog and winds blur the con­tours and make them almost other­worldly. The moun­tains and slopes seem impene­trable, mys­tical, sublime. The man-made shrinks beyond reco­gnition. As if life on the archi­pelago in the far North Atlantic between Scotland and Iceland con­sisted exclu­sively of hard, violent gusts, lashing sea rain and tre­eless bar­renness against a gigantic, rough backdrop.

Human con­s­truc­tions can only survive here if they are built with and not against the land­scape – flat, dug in, modest. Anyone tra­velling to the archi­pelago for the first time imme­diately rea­lises how com­pre­hen­sively nature influences life. The building culture of the 18 islands, which are slightly larger in area than the German islands of Rügen and Usedom put tog­ether, is the­r­efore closely linked to local life with nature.

The first traces of human habi­tation date back to the Viking era. Their long­houses were low and made of stone and grass. They offered pro­tection from the raging ele­ments. Vil­lages deve­loped from these farm­steads, espe­cially as fishing became more important. The new sett­le­ments gave rise to a new type of house, the fisher­men’s houses. These had a stone base, grass roofs and were clad in wood. In their robust, spartan form, they epi­tomise the tra­di­tional Faroese building style. The houses grew with pro­sperity and soon larger buil­dings with ornate details replaced the classic fisher­men’s houses – a reflection of the change from an island society cha­rac­te­rised by agri­culture to one cha­rac­te­rised by fishing industry.

The churches represent a special typology on the islands. Espe­cially in the first half of the 19th century, wooden sacred buil­dings were erected, which still dominate the vil­lages and sett­le­ments. The foun­da­tions are white­washed, the walls are tarred and the roofs are made of grass. Inside, the woodwork is ornate and richly detailed. The simple yet elegant wooden churches the­r­efore sym­bolise tra­di­tional Faroese craft­smanship and deeply rooted faith.

Today, the Faroe Islands are a par­lia­mentary mon­archy with self-government. The head of state is the Royal House of Denmark. Since 2005, the archi­pelago has been an equal nation in the Kingdom of Denmark with influence over foreign and security policy. The same applies to Greenland, the largest island in the world and also part of the union with Denmark. The centre of the Faroe Islands is the capital Tór­shavn, which has deve­loped into an engine of growth. Of the more than 50,000 islanders, almost 22,000 live in Tór­shavn. Important buil­dings have been con­s­tructed in the last few decades, which have cha­rac­te­rised the local archi­tecture, but also the self-image of the Faroe Islands.

One of the most important new buil­dings of recent decades is the ‘House of the North’. It is the coun­try’s most important cul­tural and con­gress centre and was opened in 1983. It is a symbol of Nordic archi­tecture and co-ope­ration. Ola Steen from Norway and Kollbrún Rag­nars­dóttir from Iceland designed a two-storey building with a grass roof, a floor of Nor­wegian granite, an interior design from Finland (by Alvar Aalto) and a steel girder structure from Denmark.

‘Lis­tasavn Føroya’ is just a few minutes’ walk from the House of the North. The National Gallery is a flat museum complex with gabled and pyramid roofs and con­sists of two sec­tions. The oldest part was designed by the renowned Faroese architect Jákup Paula Gre­go­ri­ussen in 1970, while the second part of the museum is an extension by Niels F. Truelsen in col­la­bo­ration with Gre­go­ri­ussen (com­pleted in 1993).

Outside the city centre, two buil­dings are emble­matic of the Faroese pen­chant for sym­bolism and sculpture. The Vest­ur­kirkan [West Church] is a church building of the Faroese Lutheran Church and, at 41 metres high, is the tallest building in the country. Inau­gu­rated in 1975, the West Church resembles a sty­lised sail. It was designed by Holm & Grut, a large archi­tec­tural firm based in Copen­hagen that has been active since 1941.

The most spec­ta­cular new building of recent years was also designed by a Danish firm. The Glasir, built by BIG (the Bjarke Ingels’ Group), is an edu­ca­tional centre of super­la­tives. It houses the Tech­nical Uni­versity, the Business College and other faci­lities for almost 2,000 tea­chers, stu­dents and employees. Bjarke Ingels’ team designed a stack of five indi­vidual levels that wrap around a central cour­tyard. This vortex-like structure ends with the uppermost levels, which radiate up to 30 metres into the moun­tainous land­scape of Tór­shavn.

The muni­ci­pality of Eystur­kommuna with its new town hall in Norðragøta shows that exciting building pro­jects are also being created outside the capital. It was designed by Henning Larsen (HL, Copen­hagen), with Faroese architect Ósbjørn Jacobsen in charge. HL’s office partner and his team designed an elon­gated, multi-angled building directly on Norðragøta harbour. Part of the building leads over a small river. This turns the acces­sible green roof into a bridge. This bridge is intended to create a con­nection to the Eystur neigh­bourhood, so it is only logical that the council chamber is located directly above the river. On the Faroe Islands, the con­cepts of dividing and uniting belong tog­ether. The town hall was built with the land­scape, not against it, and sym­bo­lises the new suc­cessful island archi­tecture: self-con­fident, stylish and with the ambition to further develop Faroese building culture.

Text: Jan Dimog

Photos: Hendrik Bohle & Jan Dimog, thelink.berlin

Author info:

Jour­nalist Jan Dimog runs a digital magazine on building culture tog­ether with architect Hendrik Bohle. On thelink.berlin they have been telling about their dis­co­veries in Europe for years, espe­cially about the con­nec­tions between people and archi­tecture.

When they are not on the road, they curate high-profile exhi­bi­tions, such as the tra­velling exhi­bition on Arne Jacobsen’s archi­tecture.