AMAG 35

Manthey Kula

Manthey Kula is a small but highly commended Norwegian architectural office, with an influence on the professional community, especially among the younger generation, that is far greater than its relatively limited production should indicate. The position as a model practice, with their work being closely scrutinized, and to a certain degree even copied, might be slightly contradictory to what one could perceive as their ethos; every task potentially has a completely new solution and it is the duty of architects to utilize their endowment to the fullest, contributing to the imperative cultural and poetic growth of society. Then it is fully understandable that they consistently chose demanding and precarious paths. What they search for could perhaps be well described by a sentence from the Norwegian poet Jon Fosse: a voice given to the unspeakable. So, they often end up with highly surprising results, such as the Mourning Buildings in Germany or the Hamburgö house. In Germany the shells are related to what Frei Otto call minimal structures and could be seen as an implicit search for, or a meditation on the big existential questions, a type of meditation that might only be fully articulated with a built structure. The architectural concentration that Manthey Kula has achieved in this project is astonishing. They have found a very small overlapping field between the self-referring and the contextual as well as buildings that are both precise constructions and appropriate physical metaphors. One can easily get the impression that they see no fundamental difference between art and architecture, their work is often ambiguous and evades clear categorization. Obviously, such positions in architecture are rare and the results are probably impossible to realize with the pragmatic mindset so typical among many architects who build a lot. Their strong willed and personal way of building can be perceived as elitist and exclusionary however, nowadays definitely a demanding stand in the Scandinavian social democracies, given that you must collaborate on many levels and with many people if you wish to build anything at all as an architect. But their dogmatism is combined with a deep sense of practicality and search for knowledge. In their realized work I feel that complex and deep theories that might never be articulated in writing, are constantly being tested and slightly refined with each new project and the insight it gives. Their research lies in the buildings themselves. Having said this I would insist that their work, even though one could call it heroic, is deeply humane and gives a clear sense of hope and justification to our profession.

Jan Olav Jensen, April 2024