When the Guest is better than the Author. Olafur Eliasson
02/06/2011.
by Olafur Eliasson + Henning Larsen Architects [Reykjavik] Iceland.
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Collaborations between art and architecture, including architects and artists, are very common, but what happens when the guest work overlaps value and quality to the work of the author? I always remember as the guests can get to drive out the architect of his own work, not because of lack of quality, sometimes by more prosaic matters. We all remember Jørn Utzon and the Sydney Opera House, where the world famous engineering Arup stayed to the end of the work.
Interior picture Project / Henning Larsen Architects.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
Interior picture Project / Henning Larsen Architects.
Ground Floor plan. Project / Henning Larsen Architects.
Section. Project / Henning Larsen Architects.
Olafur already done, working with architect Kjetil Thorsen in 2007 with the Serpentine Gallery pavilion in London. Now her marriage with the architecture seems to have the same result, with geniality, with the architects Henning Larsen. You decide, on the whole, the facade or building.? I'll stick with Olafur.
Construction of the façade for Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre. Opening of the building on 20 August 2011.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
© Portus ehf, Olafur Eliasson, and Henning Larsen Architects, April 2011.
Photos by Ósbjørn Jacobsen / Henning Larsen Architects.
Project facts
Location: Reykjavik, Iceland
Client: Austurnhofn TR – East Harbour Project Ltd.
Gross floor area: 28,000 m2
Year of construction: 2007 - 2011
Type of assignment: First prize in international PPP-competition, 2005
Architects: Henning Larsen Architects and Batteriid Architects
Landscape architects: Landslag efh
Artist: Olafur Eliasson
Operator and investor: Harpa / Portus Group
Engineers: ArtEngineering GmbH, Mannvit, Hnit Verkis and Rambøll
Acoustics: Artec
Contractor:IAV
More information
HENNING LARSEN ARCHITECTS
Henning Larsen Architects, was founded in 1959 an is an is an international architecture company with strong Scandinavian roots.
Henning Larsen was born in 1925 in the town of Opsund, Videbæk, in western Denmark and moved with his parents to Bregninge, Zealand, as a child. Henning Larsen graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, in 1952. He established the company after a study trip to the United States. He started out with only one architecture student among his staff. Today, Henning Larsen Architects is one of Europe’s leading architectural companies. Henning Larsen's life work counts a number of significant building works in Denmark and abroad. He was often described as a "master the light". From 1968 to 1995, he was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.
Henning Larsen received a number of awards and recognitions. Most recently, His Royal Highness the Prince Consort of Denmark's Europe Nostra Award 2013 and in 2012 what is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of art, the Praemium Imperiale. In 2001, he established the Henning Larsen Foundation with the objective of promoting and disseminating architecture in its broad sense.
Among Henning Larsen's most important works abroad, you find the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia, 1984), The Danish Embassy in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia, 1987) and Malmö City Library (Sweden, 1997). In Denmark, his most essential works include Copenhagen Business School Dalgas Have (1989), Enghøj Church (1994), Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (1996) and the Royal Danish Opera (2004).
Henning Larsen was born in 1925 in the town of Opsund, Videbæk, in western Denmark and moved with his parents to Bregninge, Zealand, as a child. Henning Larsen graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, in 1952. He established the company after a study trip to the United States. He started out with only one architecture student among his staff. Today, Henning Larsen Architects is one of Europe’s leading architectural companies. Henning Larsen's life work counts a number of significant building works in Denmark and abroad. He was often described as a "master the light". From 1968 to 1995, he was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.
Henning Larsen received a number of awards and recognitions. Most recently, His Royal Highness the Prince Consort of Denmark's Europe Nostra Award 2013 and in 2012 what is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of art, the Praemium Imperiale. In 2001, he established the Henning Larsen Foundation with the objective of promoting and disseminating architecture in its broad sense.
Among Henning Larsen's most important works abroad, you find the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia, 1984), The Danish Embassy in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia, 1987) and Malmö City Library (Sweden, 1997). In Denmark, his most essential works include Copenhagen Business School Dalgas Have (1989), Enghøj Church (1994), Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (1996) and the Royal Danish Opera (2004).
Olafur ELIASSON
Olafur Eliasson (Copenhagen, 1967) studied at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Copenhagen between 1989 and 1995. He represented Denmark in the 2003 Venice Biennale and has exhibited his work at numerous international museums. His work is part of private and public collections such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles and Tate Modern in London, where his seminal work The weather project was exhibited. Eliasson lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen.
Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The weather project at Tate Modern, London. Take your time: Olafur Eliasson, a survey exhibition organised by SFMOMA in 2007, travelled until 2010 to various venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
As professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin, Eliasson founded the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute of Space Experiments) in 2009, an innovative model of arts education. In 2012, he launched Little Sun, a solar-powered lamp developed together with the engineer Frederik Ottesen to improve the lives of the approximately 1.6 billion people worldwide without access to electricity. Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre, for which he created the façade in collaboration with Henning Larsen Architects, was awarded the Mies van der Rohe Award 2013.
Verklighetsmaskiner (Reality machines) at t he Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2015, became the museum’s most visited show by a living artist. In 2016 Eliasson created a series of interventions for the palace and gardens of Versailles, including an enormous artificial waterfall that cascaded into the Grand Canal.
His other projects include Studio Other Spaces, an international office for art and architecture which he founded in Berlin in 2014 with architect Sebastian Behmann; and Little Sun, a social business and global project providing clean, affordable light and encouraging sustainable development, with engineer Frederik Ottesen.
