Christoffer Harlang

Rather than treating preservation as the static safeguarding of an immutable object, this proposal by Lundgaard & Tranberg Team conceptualizes the Viking Ship Hall as an evolving architectural palimpsest in which historical and contemporary layers coexist in a coherent and reciprocal relationship. Through this approach, the project argues for a mode of transformation architecture that preserves the spatial, tectonic, and atmospheric qualities of the original building while enabling its continued cultural relevance under changing environmental and institutional conditions.

Creating architecture is an ancient art form evolving challenges and techniques of different eras, yet with a surprisingly stable methodology and impact on the human mind. The architects possess a unique ability in the capacity to synthesize functional, technical, and social elements into a meaningful whole that resonates with the observer, evoking a subtle yet striking sense in the observer of being at ease in the world. While it is important to stress that it is an art form, it is also, to a great extent, a craft only mastered through repeated practice.

The project examines how our architectural design practice relies on borrowed methods and techniques. We invent nothing; instead, we refine, develop, and improve upon a borrowed world. We explore this in the exhibition TIL LÅNS (On Loan) by presenting examples of the disciplines that inform our architectural design. We neither buy nor manufacture anything; everything in the exhibition is on loan.In the exhibition hall, we begin by laying a floor of borrowed rugs, covering an area of ​​approximately 4 x 8 meters. In doing so, we create a defined space within the hall—one that remains open, however, inviting visitors to furnish and inhabit it. Stepping onto the rugs is like entering a room; the sound changes, as does the physical sensation in one’s body. We furnish this space with a series of elements, each conveying a narrative about the disciplines that shape—and describe—our approach to architectural design and its outcomes.

The shift in paradigm from the designers professional skills based on craft and on phenomenological sensitivity of the visible world to the intangible world of marketing and management process is in my mind unfortunate and contra productive. It is one of the aims of this project – again - to focus on the sensibility of the eye and the intelligence of hand as a fervent awareness that is important tool when we shape our objects. And to investigate the language of morphology in an object informed by the hand, mouth and eye.