Aurland Outlook, Norway

Pining for the Fjords?
You’ll never appreciate their mind-boggling beauty more than from a new lookout on Norway’s spectacular Aurland Fjord.
Deanna MacDonald
Globe and Mail, July 7, 2006


Standing 600 metres above the awe-inspiring Aurland Fjord on a pale wooden platform jutting 30 metres out from the side of a mountain with nothing but a glass barrier between me and the teal-blue fjord waters below, I have never felt quite so much like flying. Clearly others had similar sensations for when a group of Norwegian hikers arrived, they all gathered at the glass barrier crouching down like Olympic ski jumpers at the starting gate. Two Japanese tourists pulled up soon after but only one walked out for the breath-taking view from the end; the other watched nervously from the road. She did however insist her friend take a picture off the edge for her. Just to see what it felt like.

For an elegantly simple piece of architecture, the Aurland Fjord Lookout certainly seems to provoke a lot of emotions, which is perhaps why it is attracting so much attention. It is found about three hours east of Bergen, Norway’s second city, on one of the country’s most spectacular fjords. The lookout was the winning entry of architects Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen for a 2002 design competition held by the Norwegian Highways Department who hoped to attract more visitors to the fjord area. They choose well for though not officially open until June, Condé Nast Traveler has already named the Aurland Lookout as one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World” and numerous other publications from Wallpaper to the London Guardian newspaper have sung its praises.

“The response has been amazing,” said Saunders, 36, a Newfoundland-born, McGill-trained architect who has lived and worked in Norway since 1997. And when you see the lookout, it is easy to understand why. The most scenic route to Aurland, a small fjord-side community dating back to the Vikings, is by express ferry from Bergen which takes a pleasant half-day along the spectacular Sognefjord, the world’s longest (204km) and deepest (1308m) fjord of which the Aurland Fjord is an offshoot. My first glimpse of the lookout – a surprising golden silhouette high up on a green mountain - was from the ferry as we pulled into the tiny Aurland dock.

As most visitors continue on to the next, more tourist-oriented town of Flam, Aurland, with its 800-year old church and organic farm school, has kept an enticingly relaxed atmosphere. And high above it, about a 2-hour hike or a 10-minute drive up along Old Laerdal Road, is the celebrated lookout. Heading up the mountainside, the lookout sporadically appears among the pines, an unexpected, lyrical curve that draws you further up the mountain. Regardless of language, when it comes into full view, most visitors’ first word is “wow.”

Constructed of wood over a steel frame, the blonde pine planks appear to spring from the mountainside into the void then gracefully curve back and down to form the support. It is at once stylized and organic. The apparently seamless curve composed of specially compressed “bent” wood produced in the Netherlands is at the heart of the design. “The form is basically a quick line (or stroke of the pencil) in a dramatic landscape,” explained Saunders, “The main idea was never ever watered down.”

The environment was also primary in the design. Saunders and Wilhelmsen, a young Norwegian architect based in Stavanger, considered “nature first and architecture second,” consciously choosing an expressive form but with a minimalist concept “to conserve and complement the existing nature.”

The pair chose to leave the tall pine trees around the lookout untouched to give the sensation of walking “out into the air through treetops,” a feeling heightened by the end glass barrier that is angled ever so slightly out. “This way,” explained Saunders, “the view doesn’t have an ending”. After all, it is a lookout over one of the most sublimely beautiful places on the planet; pristine green mountains plunging into sapphire waters: there is a reason why people pine for the fjords.

The architects also added stylish public WCs nearby which perhaps have the best views of all: the outer wall overlooks the edge and is clear glass. The acrophobic are advised to wait for the next stop.

The international architecture crowd has embraced the new lookout, but have the residents of Aurland, population 590? Several I asked didn’t seem to know much about it but Laila Immel of the local tourist office seemed to think it was catching on. “At first people wanted something in stone or simpler; but now they like it – you see people and their families coming up on weekends, showing their guests.”

Was it intimidating to create a piece of architecture over one of the natural wonders of the world? “Not at the time,“ wrote Saunders in an email, “In retrospect, yes. Luckily, though, it worked out very well.”

IF YOU GO
For more information on the Aurland Fjord Lookout and the architecture of Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen see their websites: www.saunders.no, www.tommie-wilhelmsen.no.

In Aurland, the Aurland Fjord Hotel ((+47) 57 63 35 05, www.aurland-fjordhotel.com) is close to the ferry terminal and just (well 600m) below the lookout.

In Bergen, the new Det Hanseatiske Hotel (Finnegardsgaten 2, (+47) 55 30 48 00, www.dethanseatiskehotell.no) is in the historic Bryggen district and a 2 minute walk from the ferry.

For information on exploring the Aurland Fjord, see Fjord Norway (www.fjordnorway.com) or Norwegian Tourism (www.visitnorway.com)