MUST BE I'M FORGOTTEN YOU'RE NOT THOUGH

The fountain is still standing, 108 years later. Meet you there?

(Architect: Frederick Olmsted. Picture credit: Collection of James Mendola, Buffalo, NY)

THE BEGINNING

Back in school. More than a year has passed and I really am a different person in more than one way. And ready.

The music is from the movie 'The Truman Show' from 1998, featuring some really cool sets, including the very real town of Seaside, a traditional-looking new town in Florida, and a place where I'd really like to go.

GO FORTH

Decay and optimism for a new decade.

HEY, THERE'S THE VILLAGE

I met av very nice Russian man in Mombasa last week and was reminded about this song. I have no idea what it's actually about, but it does sound to me as if they really like villages.

(I do too, let's build more villages!)

WHAT

what is the good of the strongest heart
in a body that's falling apart?
a serious flaw, i hope you know that

THE HEADMISTRESS' SONG

Young Dreams from Young Dreams on Vimeo.

This weekend, I attended a seminar arranged by my alma mater, Bergen School of Architecture. The topic was the architect education of the future, and loads of interesting questions were raised. One of the moments I'll remember the best, however, was the opening, where our headmistress (principal/rector/leader whatever you prefer) Marianne Skjulhaug played this very cool and aesthetically pleasing music video from the band called Young Dreams.

The video was taped in a house called Planetveien 12, built by the great Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo for himself and his wife, the artist Grete Prytz Kittelsen. Architect  Ragnhild Jordtveit Kristiansen, who writes the blog "Mine venners hjem" says in her blog post about the house that "Planetveien is a dream of glass, concrete and teak, with specially designed and built-in furniture and surprising and original solutions". Read the blog post and watch the video (in full screen).

RAIN

Have you ever considered just how beautiful a group of tents can be, especially at a time when the rain has been falling very heavily, but is slowly leaving, and the sun is starting to shine through?

Picture taken summer 2004 at Utøya.

<3

NORWEGIAN PARTY

As some of you might know, writing texts in English may lead to people from other countries reading them. My blog gets visits from many parts of the world, and during the last week I've had hits from such countries as the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, India, Egypt, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil and Ukraine. It seems most of these are visits to older posts, but in case any of my visitors should wonder what my native country of Norway is like, I'm posting this video:

CHILDREN IN THE CITY

"I can never imagine it's good for a child grow up in the city."

Never say never. Walking home from school today I met a six year old or so girl who was beatboxing while carrying a branch of cherry blossoms, probably picked off one of the strees in our street. I can't know for sure, but she seemed cool enough.

PETULA CLARK

Promoting mixed-use development since 1964.

"Downtown everything's waiting for you".

Song composed by Tony Hatch.

MOSTLY FUNNY IF YOU UNDERSTAND SWEDISH

The woman is yelling "Help, bungalows!", and in the car, someone's thinking "A soulmate!".

Found in a book by the Swedish artist Jan Stenmark.

ASPHALT

"I'm walking along the road, on asphalt, my legs hurt and I curse asphalt, it sucks strength.

Of all surfaces, asphalt is the worst to walk on, worse than stones and worse than rock, the asphalt is hard and dead, I feel the asphalt concrete ache up in the back, all the way up in the shoulders and the neck, it reaches the head, fills the mind with black tar, and after five hours of walking on asphalted road it's not possible to think about anything but asphalt and how to avoid it"

An attempt towards a translation of a text as it was written down and hung upon our classroom door by my classmate Øyvind Tveit. It's an excerpt from the book "Gå. Eller kunsten å leve et vilt og poetisk liv" by Tomas Espedal. The book is due to be published in English in December with the title "Tramp. Or the Art of Living a Wild and Poetic Life". 

FINDING JESUS/BERGEN LIGHT RAIL TRIP

You know how all sorts of things can happen to you while you're sitting on the bus, a train etc. On Wednesday, I took the Bergen Light Rail, which was a very nice experience. On the way, we drove past a church that I had previously seen from afar and admired, so I decided to jump off and have a look at it.

Who thought I'd find Jesus?

The church, designed in 1963 by architect Tore Sveram and built in 1970, is a typically suburban church, with a park of some sort on one side, and a graveyard on the other side. There aren't any buildings next to it, just grass and trees and cars. The entrance is on the rear side of the church, so I had to walk halfway around it to get there. The door was open, so I went in and had a look (and took the picture below) through the glass and wooden doors that went into the room of worship.

A very special room, with natural light flowing in from the ceiling, and a granite angel as the altar piece.

Then, a lovely old church lady showed up, and I asked if I could come in, explaining that I was an architecture student who had an interest in these sort of buildings. She unlocked the door, turned on the lighting and told me some facts about the church (although she couldn't remember the name of the architect, ha ha).

I took some pictures, and suddenly I saw what I had captured. There he was! Jesus Christ!

In the baptismal font! He didn't say anything, but I was still impressed. I wonder if he was invited there by the architect or not. It'd be cool is he was, but creating that kind of an image must be extremely difficult. 

 

The ceiling was also amazing. There was something about the architecture pulling me upwards, I need to learn how to do that. The church has another name, "Ad astra", which is latin and means "to the stars". I could very easily imagine travelling up to the stars from a place like this. When the sun isn't up, the sky is represented by rows of light bulbs, which probably look very beautiful as well.

BE LONGING

Will he recall the prison
of field and shore,
a world that now is vanished,
that sings no more?

Will he renew the music
of virgin choirs,
the life of holy rapture
that never tires?

From the poem The Disguised God, by Hjalmar Gullberg, translation by John Michael Hearne. The poem was made into a lyrical suite by the composer Lars-Erik Larsson in 1940.