REMEMBERING THE POST _ Haukaas Master Course _ Spring 2015 _ BAS

REMEMBERING

THE

PO S T

THE NEW POSTALROAD OF HAUKAAS HAUKAAS MASTER COURSE_SPRING 2015 PAULO FERNANDEZ FERNANDEZ

PAULO FERNÁNDEZ FERNÁNDEZ paulo.fernandezf@gmail.com +34 633057162 MASTER COURSE_SPRING 2015 HAUKAAS BLUE//GREEN BELT ALTERNATE INSERT(S) & AUGMENTED LANDSCAPE(S) BERGEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Sandviksboder 59–61a Postadr: PB 39, 5841 Bergen Tlf.+ 47 55 36 38 80Fax.+ 47 55 36 38 81 adm@bas.org

REMEMBERING THE POST

THE NEW POSTALROAD OF HAUKAAS

There is something to remember in Haukaas. In the past, a Postalroad crossed from south to north the hole area of Haukaas (Asane), and nowadays it seems to be lost. The project aims to reactivate the area by creating a new revival of the Old Postalroad (Den Trondhjemske Postvei), through a series of new buildings/pavilions/spaces along the path of the Postalroad.

Also linked with one person’s letters (Gjertina Almas), the project wants to go back to the old times when the information was sent by letter, and there was no internet. How did they send the information, how long it took, and what was the feeling of sending it, are some of the main ideas about the proposal.

It is very important the movement through all the Postalroad, and how the different buildings are connected (not phisicaly, but some times connected by emotions/feelings). In the same way, it is also very important the way to connect the present and the past, and how the past could play in the days that we are living now. The place needs a reactivation, and having the Postalroad as a very important thing in the site, the place would become a place of pilgrimage for lot of people from Bergen, and also from different parts of the country, giving the importance of this place in the history of Norway and its Post.

60°29’49.80”N 5°20’0.77”E HAUKAAS,ÅSANE BERGEN NORWAY

Located in the north of Bergen, the area of Haukaas is currently under development state, mainly urban, by which this area is going to experiment lot of changes into the future. There are some proposals for the new development of the place, made by three different architecture studios from Norway. In all of them, the residential area is increased in the east part of Haukaas, and also some connections with the city center are enhanced.

POSTVEIEN I BERGEN

On 13 May 1785 a weekly post connection between Bergen and Trondheim was established by Royal decree. Up to that time, following the creation of the Norwegian Post Office in 1647, all post between Norway’s then two most important cities had had to go via Oslo - which was both inconvenient and expensive for Bergen’s industrious tradesmen. A direct postal connection was also of interest to the district’s officials, military, sheriffs, priests and bailiffs, as well as the important fisheries that provided the basis for flourishing businesses and increasing trade. A more efficient and faster postal service needed a better road. The designated “Safest and Most Convenient Post Tour” followed the shortest route up and down mountains, across fjords, lakes and rivers - as many as 15-17 along the 700-kilometre route. The journey along the Post Road was always arduous, whether travelling on horseback, in a rowing boat, or crossing the wind-swept mountain passes on foot in the winter. The post normally took 9-10 days between Bergen and Trondheim.

Six cubits (2.7 metres) wide with good ditches was the requirement for the Trondheim Post Road, but for a long time it was no more than a footpath or bridle path. It was not really a coach road untill well into the nineteenth century.

The building of the road was the responsability of the “Roadmaster General” Nicolai Frederich Krogh (1768-1825), a resident of Bergen.

THE 3 PROPOSALS Haukaas is under development right now. There are three different proposals from three different architecture studios, that want to change the area of Haukaas in a way to make it better. They have something in common: they reorganize the living units, and they increase it a lot (so in the future, more people could live in Haukaas. Also, they take care about Haukaas’ river, which is very important because of its mussels population. Also, the wetlands in the east side of the river are a very important place for the three proposals, keeping it free of construction and living units.

In the three images, it is shown the comparison of the urban area (three new proposals) and the “rural” area (The Old Postalroad) and the way of sending information in both of them.

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60°29’50.13”N 5°20’58.11”E ALMÅS,HAUKAAS BERGEN NORWAY

GJERTINA ALMÅS’ LETTERS

Three letters founded in Almas During a small school trip to Almås (small old village situated in Haukaas, with four houses, which right now is not habited), in one of the houses three postcards/letters were found. The first one, is a Christmas Postcard, the second one is a letter from the Electricity Company, and the third one is a closed letter. The three letter have something in common: they belonged to a woman called Gjertina Almås.

After a exhausted internet research, some info about this woman was founded:

Gjertina Larsdatter Almås, f. Tuft (1888-1967)

Hansina Gjertina Larsdatter Almås Johannessen ble født på dag måned 1888, i fødested, til Lars Andersson Seim og Brita Monsdatter Almås.

Lars ble født i 1832, i Seim, Lindås.

Brita ble født i 1842, i Almås, Åsane.

OUT OF THE PATH

OLD TIMES

THE WALL

DECEMBER

NAMELESS

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DECEMBER NAMELESS THE WALL OLD TIMES OUT OF THE PATH

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DECEMBER

WHEN THAT TIME IS COMING Situated in the mid part of the Postalroad in Haukaas, “December” is one of the three main pavilions of the proposal. Is situated in the right part of the path (if you walk from Melingen to Tellevik), just after the beginning of one of the paths to go up to the mountain Veten.

One pavilion formed by the addition of four volumes: the main volume, horizontal, that contains the ground level, and is very directional.

Rectangular in shape, with an entrance and an exit. Then, three secondary volumes are added to the main one. This ones are vertical, and they add more interest to the piece, having a more complex interior space, with three openings for allow the light to enter.

In this pavilion, the Christmas Postcard is placed. Trying to reflect the feeling of the Christmas time in the pavilion, we can understand the “way” of pass through Christmas as a straight path (the days passing by) with some special things happening during this time (the vertical volumes that appear in the main volume). In the center of the second space, the letter is placed into a kind of table. The visitors can look directly at the letter and they can understand how the things worked in the past, when there wasn’t internet and the regards where sended by ordinary letter.

Material: concrete casted in place with red pigments/additives for the outside; vertical wood planks for the interior.

Axonometric diagram

Letter 1: Christmas Postcard

In this postcard, Gjertina sent some Christmas regards to a friend. Dated on 30/12/1952. With this old letters, the idea of the proposal is to reactivate the Old Postalroad using something that was made in the old times, when the letters were used daily. Having only three letters, and making a small memorial to Gjertina Almaas, the three pavilions where created in order to have a space to save this items.

View of the pavilion from the path. Is not a very big space, but considering the scale of the site, and the place where it is placed, it seems to be quite big. From the path, you cannot see the entrance to the pavilion, so you need to investigate a little bit to discover it.

NAMELESS

WHEN YOU DONT KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON The second of the three main pavilions is called “Nameless�. Why nameless? Why there is not a name?

Playin with the feeling of not knowing what is happening and what is going on, the pavilion is placed inside the mountain, in the left side of the path (west of the path). With an entrance from the path, when you are approaching to it, you could think that it is a normal building, like the other old building present on the Postalroad. But, just in the moment you pass by this entrance volume, you realize that is only an empty volume. There is a long tunel that goes into the mountain.

Inside the pavilion, a game of different levels and natural shapes is established. Simple in a way, but very complicate in the other hand.

There is one main space, with two seccondary rooms added to it. In one of these rooms, the third letter from Gjertina is placed. It is an unopened letter...it could be a love letter, a burocratic letter, some regards from the family... It could be everything.

As the pavilion. It could be also everything. You can imagine the space as a place to play an instrument, to have a meeting, to shout, to sleep, to think about your life. The pavilion, by itself, wants to allow the visitors to open their mind and imagine what could happen inside it.

Model of the volumes growing from the terrain

Axonometric diagram

Letter 2: Unopened letter

An unopened letter. The mistery.

That is the idea of this pavilion. To play with the different feelings and different reactions of the visitors when they realize that where they are, could be a thousand of different spaces at the same time, deppending on the use that you give to that space. Lost, insecure, unable to decide, exhausted, tired and energetic, all at the same time.

The letter is situated inside the space, in one of the secondary rooms.

From the path, it seems to be a normal building, and old stone-wall building, typical from the Postalroad. But, when you pass this volume, you realize that this is just an empty volume. There is a tunnel that goes into the mountain, and something is happening inside. But, at first eye, you only see darkness.

OUT OF THE PATH

DOWN EARTH

The third main pavilion, is not a pavilion at all. It is a space, not very common. It is a way of, for a moment, travel out of the Postalroad to another world, related with the path, but isolated from most of the surrounding area.

It consists of a cut in the land, 8 meters deep, 2,11 meters wide. You can go down to the “under-earth” path through the stairs. Then, in the end, it finishes at the same level as the path, so you can travel back again to the real world and continue walking through the Postalroad.

This space, contains, in the wall, the third letter: the letter from the Electricity Company. Why? Because this path is something that is out of the way, out of the thinking. As the post: you can receive letters from a familiar, a friend, and you really like this letters and you put them into your life. But, when a letter from a company arrives, you just read it (sometimes not), pay it and forget it, so you move it to a secondary world of “non precious things”.

Materials: the walls are rough concrete casted in place with cutted trunks from the place (in the other part of the mountain, a defforestation is happening, so some of these trunks could be used). The floor is natural floor, with soil, sand and vegetation.

Working model of the space for walking

Axonometric diagram

Letter 3: Electricity Company

The third letter is very different from the other ones. Is not a letter about feelings, about friendship. It is just a letter from the Electricity Company, showing the amount of money you have to pay for the last two/ three months. Nothing else.

The feeling of beeing in another world is traslate into the proposal. A path, down earth, to experience what is happening in a different place, and different moment in the time.

View of the space between the walls. 8 meters deep, 2,11 meters wide. The feeling of being out of the world, and traveling to a different one. The shape is not rectilinear at all, so you need to turn a little bit to continue walking through the path.

THE WALL

DISCOVERING THE POSTALROAD

The first of the secondary constructions made in the New Postalroad is situated in the very begining of the path in Haukaas. Placed in the flat land next to the lake, this building acts as a space to discover what was happening there 300 years ago.

Mostly sculptural, the space inbetween the two big walls is full of info about the Old Postalroad, and also about the surrounding area (Haukaas, Aasane, and also some information about the city of Bergen). You can go upstairs, see the exhibition pannels, and the then come back to the path to continue the experience of walking throught the Postalroad.

The volume also works very good cathing the eyes of the people who is walking arround the place. One of the things that, nowadays is not correct, is that if you don’t know anything about the Postalroad, you will probably never discover it by yourself, because the signs are really small and they are becoming a bit destroyed.

Materials: stone and wood, as the same way as it is used in the haouses of the surrounding area.

Section of the information wall

Axonometric diagram

View of the lake from inside

OLD TIMES

THE FEELING OF WRITE A LETTER

A space for interact with the past of the Postalroad. Nowadays, some people continue sending letter to friends and family to talk with them, but living in the era of the new technologies, most of the people use the internet for being connected with all the world.

Re-using one of the old buildings of the Postalroad (that actualy is used as a refuge with a picnic table inside), a new space for sendinf letters is created. It is a small space, 5 x 10,5 m, but more than enough for having a table, a chair, and different post box to send the letters. Inside, you cannot use, for example, your mobile phone: there are some machines that disable the frecuency of the mobile phones. So, the only thing you can do inside is have a seat, take a paper and a pencil and write a letter to some one.

The main idea of the proposal, is to create a revival of the Old Postalroad, also creating a game between the old technologies (letters) and the new technologies (email, whatsapp...)

Also, this feeling could evolve in a kind of thinking by the visitor about the past, about what was to send a letter and how much time did you spend for that reason.

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Axonometric diagram

From outside, it looks exactly the same as before. The old stone building with two wooden doors and a stone bench outside. Only if you open the door, you will discover that somethings has changed.

BAS spring 2015