The Fluid Space

The Fluid Space

DALE NKD VILLA FAGERHEIM programatic exposé LOVISA WALLGREN BAS master course spring 2014 / 1 april

An overview of the villa Fagerheim, part of the NKD Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale, and the subject of the BAS master course NKD Villa Fagerheim.

It also describes the direction in the process of transforming the villa into something else.

HISTORY At the west coast of Norway in the village Dale can you

Oddleif Fagerheim was a politician and a teacher who was

find the Villa Fagerheim. The villa was designed by Peder

very active in the area. Thora Nitter Fagerheim came from a

Ritesund 1968 for the couple Oddleif and Thora Nitter

wealthy family, originally from Berlin. They had a school in

Fagerheim. The villa was completed 1970.

the village which they sold and they built the villa Fagerheim for the money.

The couple’s original idea was to open a boarding school at the property and the design of the villa includes teachers’

But they had problems realize the idea of the boarding

accommodation, facilities for the boarding school and

school and the villa was only used as a residency for

housing for themselves.

themselves before they donated the villa and the area to the Nordic Council of Ministers 1976.

In 1998 the Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale opened at the property. The area had been supplemented with several buildings and the intention was to include the villa Fagerheim in the facilities. But the villa has been shut down some years ago due to leakage problem and the detection of moulds.

NYFJELLET

CONTEXT Dale is a small village 108 km north of Bergen and part of

JARSTADHEIA

FLøyEN

the municipality of Fjaler in Sogn og Fjordane County. The village is situated in a valley in a characteristic Norwegian west coast scenery with big mountains, valleys and fjords.

Through this valley runs Dalsfjord.

The villa is located on the edge of a hill, overlooking the village. The hill is situated to the east of Dale near the center.

VILLA FAGERHEIM DALSFJORDEN THE CENTER OF DALE

108 km DALE BERGEN

THE CHURCH

THE CENTER OF DALE FAGERHEIMS OLD LIVING SPACE

VILLA FAGERHEIM DALSFJORDEN

THE SCHOOL

NKD nordic ARTISTS’ CENTRE DALE

NYFJELLET

GROUND FLOOR WITHOUT PARTITIONS WEST FACADE

BASEMENT FLOOR WITHOUT PARTITIONS

NORTH FACADE

EAST FACADE

OUTSIDE SURFACES

LEVELS, GEOMETRY AND VOLUME The building is two story high and follows the landscape with terraces in different levels. Even the inside follows the landscape with floors in different levels. There is a lot of stairs both on the inside and on the outside. There are many doors from where you can reach the outside, both from the ground floor and the basement floor.

You can go around and around, in and out, out and in.

SOUTH FACADE

GEOMETRY AND VOLUME OF THE VILLA

THE LEVELS

BUILDING VOLUME

0

1

2

3

4

5m

NORTH ELEVATION 1:250

THE FACADES, MATERIALS AND WINDOWS Part of the facades seems like heavy, white, solid, massive walls. Some walls have the appearance of thick natural stones walls and are sometimes a wall of the building and sometimes a wall in the nature.

0

1

2

3

4

5m

EAST ELEVATION 1:250

The intention with the dark painted wooden walls seems to be that they should appear lighter. Almost all the windows and openings are located at this walls. But the wood is dark and old and the lightness does not allways appear.

0

1

2

3

4

5m

WEST ELEVATION 1:250

There are windows in different sizes. Large windows spanning from the floor to the ceiling, areas with window bands and some places with windows high up. The doors are made of wood, some have windows.

0

1

2

3

4

SOUTH ELEVATION 1:250

5m

0

1

2

3

4

5m

BASEMENT FLOOR 1:250

THE ROOMS The inside consists of many rooms. The building feels large, but the most of the rooms feels quite small. The living room which are meant to be the big warm area are big, empty and cold. The windows are only facing northwest and northeast. The small rooms facing south feels warm but the long corridor leading to the rooms are claustrophobic with windows only high up.

0

1

2

3

GROUND FLOOR 1:250

4

5m

0

1

2

3

4

5m

SECTION THROUGH THE ENTRANCE HALL 1:250

0

1

2

3

4

5m

SECTION THROUGH THE LIVING ROOM 1:250

THE CHIMNEY, THE ENTRANCE HALL AND THE LIVING ROOM

0

1

2

3

4

5m

SECTION THROUGH THE DINING ROOM AND LIVING ROOM 1:250

0

1

2

3

4

5m

SECTION THROUGH THE ENTRANCE HALL AND LIVING ROOM 1:250

0

1

2

3

4

5m

SECTION THROUGH THE ENTRANCE HALL AND LIVING ROOM 1:250

VIEWS FROM DIFFERENT ROOMS

THE SPACES FROM WITHIN The exposures are out of focus, they make one forget that the photograph is taken from a model. They lets one imagine. Like a memory from a long time ago is blurred in one’s mind.

Blurred pictures lets one focus on light and colors of shadows that together form a space, without being disturbed by unimportant details. They can also be used to describe movement, a living being or the real vibrant world.

MOVING THROUGH THE SPACE Snapshots from movies made in the villa. In the movies one moves from the light to the shadow to the light again.

Passes vertical lines of light. Feels the slow movement.

The rhythm lines lines, crossing lines the windows the pattern

Fragmentation of space Investigating the patterns and the rhythm in the villa by turning the angle, removing, adding, extracting and intensifying.

Windows, doors and stairs

The rhythm lines lines, crossing lines fragmentation

One direction of two

The inside the partitions

directions in the villa fragmentation of the space

CUTTING THE VOLUME Investigating the impact and possibilities of removing parts of the villa.

THE FLUID SPACE The facades are removed, only the characteristic walls appearing as massive and the interior walls remains to play with. In that way the inside and the outside are no longer important. The space emerge between and around the walls before it slips away.

BASEMENT FLOOR All walls and facades without the thin facades

GROUND FLOOR All walls and facades without the thin facades

BASEMENT FLOOR interior walls walls appearing as massive

GROUND FLOOR interior walls walls appearing as massive

BASEMENT FLOOR existing walls in one direction

GROUND FLOOR existing walls in one direction

BASEMENT FLOOR playing with removing walls

GROUND FLOOR playing with removing walls

references so far:

PAUL KLEE

PAUL KLEE

Bauhaus Carpet

four towers 1923

Mies van der rohe Brick Country House 1923

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

Dancer on Pointe 1877-1878

Three Dancers in an Exercise Hall 1880

Sarah Moon

Sarah Moon

Sarah Moon

L’avant dernière 2008

vouge paris 1977 may

Les oiseaux de la porte dorée

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Colors of Shadow C1023 2006

Mediterranean, La Ciotat 1989

CONCLUSION If one look at the original drawing, one can find a sense of poetry in how the walls are drawn, how the walls are moving outwards in two direction. How the building tries to spread out towards the nature and the steep hill.

But when one visit the building the inside feels dark and gloomy, the biggest windows are facing north and the inside is full of small rooms and corridors. One feel enclosed and captured of a long forgotten reality.

The villa has always been torn between being a residence and being a school and it has never managed to be either.

When the new artist center tried to use it the detection of mould made that impossible. The villa has been left on it’s own for some years.

It is time that the villa turn into something else, something the original drawings were talking about but the real building never manage to be: a fluid space.