HYLAND
made beach, waterside walkways thronged by gorgeous,
sculpted people, and several intriguing art galleries,
the trendy, car-free district is a veritable public space
phenomenon. Only two years old, it's become a convivial
meeting place inspired by Venetian canals where land,
sea and air merge into a sensual, non-stop fun-scape.
"Once totally abandoned, we wanted to create a living,
joy-filled extension to the city, a diverse meeting place
with three new islands where we hoped there would be
a contemporary museum like the Guggenheim in Bilboa
or the Louisiana outside of Copenhagen," says Olav
Hindahl Selvaag, the owner of the Salvaag Gruppen AS,
which along with the Aspelin Ramm company developed
Tjuvholmen.
"We contacted (Pritzer Architecture Prize winner)
Renzo Piano (of Centre Georges Pompidou fame in Paris).
I had some of my own ideas, and he created a warm,
friendly museum on a human scale. That modern art
museum (with a private collection of American, Japanese,
European, Brazilian and other contemporary artists)
spurred the entire development. It created vibrancy like
at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and that makes
me incredibly humble, since it changed Oslo."
Returning to the Paris theme of creating "a big piazza
for people," Piano has combined several park-like spaces
with promenades, canals—and to dramatically convey its
prominence in the harbor, given the seemingly-weathered,
timber-clad Fearnley a huge glass roof shaped like a sail
that swoops over its three buildings.
The Fearnley's bold and thought-provoking design
also emphasizes the notion that this is the "new Norway,"
a free-thinking, innovative and independent global player
