Guest of honor pavilion

Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Year: 2019

Status: Built

Client: NORLA

Photo Credit: manthey kula and Luis Callejas

Award: Nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2022

In collaboration with LCLA

In 2019 Norway was the guest of honor at the international book fair in Frankfurt. An open competition asked for a spatial concept that could organize the different cultural activities that were to take place in the large existing hall.

The space was divided by a single wall. Towards the pavilion’s large windows: the library, a cafe and small stages. On the dark side of the wall: the large stage and a landscape of strangely familiar table-forms. The tables referred to the abstract geography contained in literature: the landscape of imagination.

Each table supported a specific category of books or literature-related objects. The tables were designed and produced in aluminium with excellent craftsmanship not typical of temporary events. After the book fair, the tables were given to selected cultural institutions, libraries and book stores.

Flåm restaurant and foodcourt

Location: Flåm, Norway

Year: 2019

Status: Invited Competition

Photo Credit: manthey kula

A glue-lam post and beam structure clad in raw aluminium housing restaurants and food market in the heavily touristed village of Flåm in the fjord landscape of western Norway.

Looking Through Portals

Location: Museum of Cultural History

Year: 2018

Status: Built

Client: Museum of Cultural History

Photo Credit: manthey kula

Skreda rest area

Location: Skreda, Lofoten, Norway

Year: 2018

Status: Built

Client: Norwegian Scenic Routes

Photo Credit: manthey kula

Award: Nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2019

The project is a complete transformation of an existing rest stop from the 1980’s, dominated by an over-sized traffic area. The site was organized in, and between an artificial terrain of nature-like mounds and boulders which obscured the view to the Lofoten seascape. The new project aimed to establish an inviting floor where from where travelers can enjoy the beautiful view across the water. The platform is subordinate to the landscape, yet its convex geometry contributes to place the visitors in an exposed, but secure position in the center of the large open space.

The platform is constructed of steel sheets spanning between cast concrete foundations. The foundations form floors for the furniture, ramps, and stair. The furniture consists of benches, tables, and railings, all structurally interdependent, all made from bent standard flat steel bolted or welded together to form stable elements. There are thirty different surfaces to sit on and by. Each piece has a different pattern in solid colors. The surfaces are highly reflective, mirroring the ever-changing sky.

With Eyes Closed - Gauguin and Munch

Location: Munch museum, Oslo

Year: 2018

Status: Built

Client: The Munch museum

Photo Credit: The Munch museum/ Ove Kvavik

Exhibition of art by Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) and Edvard Munch (1863–1944), two artists who in all likelihood never met. Gauguin is said to have remarked that he closed his eyes in order to see, while Munch famously said: “I don’t paint what I see, but what I saw.” The exhibition focused on the graphic work of the two aritist, revolving around three main suites made by Gauguin, exhibited in three unique spaces.

Stella’s room

Location: Sørum, Hedmark, Norway

Year: 2018

Status: Built

Client: Private

Photo Credit: manthey kula

The present farm is the result of a series of architectural interventions by late architect Are Vesterlid: A rich architectural collage of historic timber tradition and original contemporary work. Stella’s room is an addition to this context, executed some years after Vesterlid’s passing.

The room is built in the un-insulated part of the old barn building, partly behind the existing barn door. A free standing glass wall on the inside of the existing timber structure exposes the beautiful order of the old posts and beams. When the large barn door is closed light is brought into the room through a sculptural skylight.

Det Felles Eide

Location: Kunstnernes Hus

Year: 2018

Status: Built

Client: Oslo Kommune

Photo Credit: Werner Zellien and manthey kula

Exhibition of a selection of Oslo municipalities’ art collection which consists of more than 20 000 works. This is art we all own, art we meet in the public space, art we relate to in our lives in the city.

Tullholmen pier

Location: Tullholmen, Karlstad, Sweden

Year: 2017

Status: Unbuilt

Client: Karlstad municipality

Photo Credit: manthey kula

A public pier into one of Lake Vänern’s many delta-bays in the city of Karlstad, Sweden. The pier is a public art project and as such connected to the municipal development. It is situated as a prolongation of the central axis through the new densely developed area. It is pointing southwestwards towards the natural reserve on the opposing shore. The form of the pier allows a lot of people to spend time on that which is a pier’s most attractive part; the very end. The public space at the end of the pier is sheltered from wind and from the city view by tall benches lining the two sides of the pier. The pier is a concrete structure: pillars, slabs, floor and 160 meters of prefabricated bench-elements. The area of the pier is 1500m2.

Archipelago – Building from solitude

Year: 2017

Status: Part of the collection at the Frac Centre Val de Loire, France

Photo Credit: manthey kula

Archipelago - Building from solitude is a work commissioned by Le Frac Centre, Val de Loire. The five projects are generated from brief accounts of five individuals that experienced profound isolation, across history and across the map. The fates of these people are known. However, their dreams – products of lived impressions, existential reasoning, and subdued thoughts – remain outside our reach. In the five projects exact formal and spatial ideas are developed from speculation and inspiration. As such the work explores the relationship between order, association and intuition.

Building from G

Building from J

Building from L

Building from M

Building from P

Viking age museum

Year: 2016

Status: Competition

In collaboration with LCLA + Charlotte Hansson, Grape Architects, and Groma

Open competition for the new Viking Age Museum in Oslo, Norway.

Other house

Year: 2016

Status: Paper Project, exhibitied at CAMPO gallery in Rome, FRAC Centre-Val de Loire and at Budsjord pilegrimsgård

manthey kula was given a framework of a human emotion: hope, and an architectural principle: system. These two concepts were to be used as lenses to reflect upon two images by Walter Pichler from the FRAC archive of experimental architecture.

One structure, two inhabitants, one building, two territories, one nature.

The life in the house is told from A – Y.

Z is another story.

Window

Distant silence from the empty house below,

Rising to the rituals of the body, shedding warmth of sleep in front of glass.

Night is leaving, day is coming slow,

Cold feet on the floor while I watch the morning pass.

Early light across the curving wall, pointing to an aim.

Sudden movement, modest glimpses, all concluded in mutual recognition:

Rounded shoulder, naked neckline and the features of another face.

Thinking: Should I think of him by name?

Constant concrete framing figures fixed in opposition,

Projected longing to a shared horizon, nestled in between suspended space.

Table

Descending slowly into waves of light.

Where a solid echo protects the attributes of home.

Context – wild and tended – emerging into sight,

Reflected sun draws maps for eyes that roam.

Steel and concrete positioned with decision,

Fulfilled geometries eclipse the other life.

Sharing structure: are we seated at a common table?

Domesticity unfolds inside precision,

Space divides existences like a knife.

Our presences in orbit are not stable.

Fire

Expansion turning to contraction till the skin is circumscribed by wall,

Horizontal light moves inwards, finding refuge in a darkened apse.

Enclosed by cast construction, the threshold to the world is tall,

Your heat transported through the structure; a momentary lapse.

Balanced span and optimistic tension,

Support the sturdy slab and tender use,

Solitary flames uphold the common mound.

Inside a rare dimension,

Space is tight, but time is loose.

Looking outside to the outside ground.

Mirror

Rapid run to a common point,

Where independent systems meet and measure.

Separated and connected in a membrane joint,

Reflected eyes give pleasure.

Trembling surface, resonating footsteps in a stair,

My image in the mirror standing still:

Will you feel my presence when you pass?

Sudden shivers and a scent of moss is brought by air,

Silence kept by doubt and not by will.

Cyclic life is calling through the glass.

Forest

The house is left behind for open sky.

Beneath the feet a certain softness of the earth,

Myriads of nuances hit the eye:

Living matter reminiscent of birth.

Where you are enters my concern,

As I pass through heel high heather.

The ground is changing to a gentle slope.

I seek the forest in order to return,

Trunks and branches twined together.

This community of beings gives us hope.

Forvik ferry port

Location: Forvik, Vevelstad, Norway

Year: 2015

Status: Built

Client: Norwegian Public Roads Administration

Photo Credit: manthey kula

A transparent structure through which one does not only see the old tavern across the bay , but also every part of the construction.

The service building consists of two concrete gable walls and an up side down vault of 10mm galvanized steel spanning between, and cantilevering past them. Underneath the roof are insulated spaces of slender wooden frames and glass. From inside the rooms one can see the continuous steel vault above the glass ceiling. The structure has an asymmetrical section with cantilevering awnings towards the south. The appearance of the building was never an intention in itself, but a result of the desire to expose every part of the structure and to make use of the static potential in the inverted vault.

The main focus for the landscape was to minimize the traffic area and give the intervention in the vulnerable coastal terrain a distinct, but subordinate form. This is achieved by eliminating ditches and retaining walls and by careful planning of the cutting of bedrock.

Ode to Osaka

Location: The National Museum - Architecture, Oslo, Norway

Year: 2015

Status: Built

Client: The National Museum - Architecture

Photo Credit: Annar Bjørgli, Urs Meier Aegler, manthey kula

Manthey Kula was commissioned to develop a concept for realization of Sverre Fehn’s un-built competition proposal for a breathing space for the Osaka World Fair in 1970. The installation was built in Fehn’s last building; The Ulltveit Moe pavilion of the National Museum.

The installation’s relationship to the initial competition entry had to be solved and sorted out: Technical issues, matters of form and material, geometry, size and siting, and eventually that of exhibition content.

The work was not Sverre Fehn’s project for the Osaka World fair, but a contemporary installation based on, and honoring his idea. It was a structure consisting of an airlock building and an inflated, moving space. All details were developed so that the installation could be dismounted and re-erected.

There were no objects on show – only space.

Innisfree

Year: 2015

Status: Competition

Open competition for an installation celebrating William Butler Yeats 150 years anniversary

What to protect? That which is still untouched and that which we long for
What to give? A specific place with a universal resonance

A highly polished stainless steel surface onto which a sculptural, yet functional steel chair is welded. Mounted on pontoons dimensioned to support the platform right above the water level.

In due time the steel floor will be transported to its final position at the university campus where the chair will continue to support lingering dreams.

Book crossing

Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Year: 2014

Status: Built

Client: Taipei Free Artist's Association

Photo Credit: manthey kula

The small kiosk was part of Taipei’s preparation for becoming Design Capital 2016. Four international architects were invited to develop tiny structures with a public function for specific sites in the city.

Manthey Kula designed a book crossing where people of the neighborhood could meet and exchange used books. The white structure contrasted the colorful context, and the minimal interior captured scenes from the passing life and ever-changing city light.

Through Nature

Location: The Munch museum, Oslo, Norway

Year: 2014

Status: Built

Client: The Munch museum

Photo Credit: manthey kula

The exhibition was a collaboration between the Museum of natural history and the Munch museum, contextualizing Edvard Munch’s interest in the natural sciences by juxtaposing Munch’s art with objects from the zoological, botanical and geological collections.

MK521

Location: The Nordic Pavilion, Venice, Italy

Year: 2012

Status: Built

Client: The National Museum - Architecture

Photo Credit: manthey kula

MK521 was a sound installation for Venice Biennale 2012, the 50th anniversary of Sverre Fehn’s Nordic pavilion.

The project had two sources: The ffictional dialogue between Sverre Fehn and Andrea Palladio written by Fehn in 1964. and the module of 521 millimeters that Fehn made use of in the design of the iconic building.

The installation hung from one of the openings in the roof of the pavilion, designed to give space for a tree . The recorded dialog was played from a speaker suspended in a tailored trunk made of natural wool felt. During transport the piece was contained in a crate of fiberboard. When installed, the crate served as seating for the listener. The crate measured 521x521x521 millimeters, thus fitting the grid of the pavilion floor.

Tribunal for the displaced

Year: 2012

Status: Paper Project, exhibitied in Venice, Italy

Photo Credit: manthey kula

The tribunal gives architectural substance to questions concerning the individual and the collective, freedom and totalitarianism, silence and speech.

The project examines the possibility for a new social and architectural program based on interpretation of a contemporary global situation. It suggests a shift of questions concerning residency for migrants away from the national economic realm to the common ground of humanity. The tribunal is an institution based on the constant laws of compassion rather than on the ever-changing political agendas and bureaucracies. It is one of several courts that are established in regions of migration. An international body of justice administers these courts.

The displaced is whoever seeks legal residence, be it a refugee or a paperless immigrant. The objective of the tribunal is to decide whether the permit should be granted. The displaced testifies to a jury of six laymen, one from each continent appointed for a month-long service by the international administrative body. The assessment of each testimony is based solely on the jury’s opinion of the story of the displaced. If the permit is granted it is immediately produced and the migrant can leave the tribunal as a resident. If the jury is not convinced by the testimony he or she must return.

Each testimony and each jury decision is documented and archived. The archive of the tribunal will become a source to the understanding of a global situation and of the human heart.

The tribunal is situated in Cannaregio at the end of Calle de la Beccarie, overlooking Ponte Della Libertá.

THE DISPLACED

Each morning a group of displaced arrive at the dock by boat from a center on the mainland. The group ascends to the third floor where they await their turn to testify. The time spent in the tribunal waiting is stressful to most of the migrants. The secretary accompanies each migrant to the tribunal on the fourth floor. The hearing usually takes less than two hours, some times more. The desicion of the jury is given without disussion among its members. As such, every desicion is an individual concern for each memnber of the jury. If the jury finds the migrant’s testimony convincing, a residence permit is produced immediately by the notary. After having received the permit the new citicen leaves the tribunal, entering the city through the square in front of the building. At the end of the day the refused, if any , are transported back to the main land, later to return to their native contries.

THE PUBLIC

The hearings are open to the public. Sixty seats in the tribunal are intended for citizens, relatives, journalists, students and researchers. However, no interference of the testimonies is allowed. Apart from the voice of the migrant, and some muffled sound when the hands of the jury are shown after the testimony is over, the tribunal is very quiet. The square outside the tribunal is busy with people: the air is filled with anticipation and exclamations of joy and relief. Only seldom are there outbursts of anger or silent grief.

THE JURY

The jury consists of six laypeople, one from each continent. They are appointed for a month’s service by the international administrative body. Their assignment is to decide whether the displaced should be granted residency based on her or his testimony. The decision of the jury is a majority desicion where at least five of its members have to agree on the outcome. Each case is set without discussion. While in Venice, the six jurors stay in the quarters on the second floor of the tribunal building, where the meals are prepared and served by the caretakers. In the evening the jury members gather in the parlour or on the terrace to recapitulate the testimonies of the day.

THE SECRETARY

The secretary of the tribunal must speak Italian, English, Spanish and Chinese fluently. It is the secretary’s duty to facilitate the hearing procedures, set the schedules, inform each jury and the public of routines and requirements, arrange for qualified interpreters to be present when needed, and transcribe every testimony for archival purposes. The secretary is not expected to stay on for more than two years.

THE INTERPRETERS

Interpreters of Venice are summoned to the tribunal when their service is needed. In order to qualify one has to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The number of interpreters present each day depends on the origin of the migrants and the composition of the jury. The scheduling of the interpreters is organized by the secretary.

THE NOTARY

The notary is an official clerk whose role is to issue legally correct residency permits to those migrants accepted by the jury. The notary does not engage in the drama of the tribunal. While the displaced give their testimonies the notary arranges the documents and the legal stamps on the desk according to height, size and number.

THE CARETAKERS

The caretakers, a former migrant couple, maintain the daily routines in the building. They prepare meals for the displaced and look after the jury quarters and the waiting rooms. From their flat on the first floor they can reach all parts of the building. They are the only ones that have access to the stairway of the displaced.

THE ARCHIVIST

Every morning the archivist receives a file from the secretary where the testimonies of the day before are transcribed to English, Chinese and Spanish. The testimonies are archived according to date, country of origin and category. The largest categories in the archive are: war, persecution, famine, and hope. When the archivist is not filing or finding testimonies for citizens, journalists, relatives, researchers and students, he sits in his office trying to fathom the existential consequences of the outcome of the ongoing hearings.

Puberty

Location: The Munch museum, Oslo, Norway

Year: 2012

Status: Built

Client: Munch museum

Photo Credit: manthey kula

Mono exhibition of Edvard Munch’s newly restored painting Puberty at the Munch museum.

Prefabricated plywood panels and white flooring creating a space where the spectator is confronted with the vulnerability of both the young model and the painting.

Modular hydro power stations

Location: Ditti / Lappskaret / Krogstad / Ellenelva / Mortendalselva / Saltdalelva, Norway

Time: 2010

Status: Unbuilt, 1st prize invited competition

Client: Fjellkraft as

Photo Credit: manthey kula

System for prefabrication of modular hydro power stations. Similarly formed wall- and roof elements in solid wood or concrete to be assembled responding to changing site conditions and different technical requirements. In spite of individual differences the buildings are recognizable as part of the company's profile.