Detour is coming to the Big Apple
The Atlantic road in Møre og Romsdal. Photo: Turistvegprosjektet, Werner Harstad.
The Architectural Exhibit “Detour” will open December 4, 2009, at Parsons New School for Design in New York.
Visitors will have the opportunity to explore the magnificent and varied natural landscape, as well as some of the architectural achievements, along popular tourist routes in Norway.
The Detour Project
Road trips are often considered the best way to explore the scenery in foreign countries. By taking a detour on the road in Norway, you may find some surprising architectural gems. Now, some of these scenic highlights can be experienced without crossing the Atlantic.
Exhibition
Along the fjords, waterfalls, mountains, coasts and countryside of Norway runs 18 National Tourist Routes. Through the Detour project, a collaboration between the Norwegian Public Roads Administration and the foundation Norsk Form, close to 200 architectural projects have sprung up along these routes, in the form of exciting stopping points, information centres, picnic areas, rest stops, and observation platforms designed into being striking landmarks themselves.
The architects and designers, both Norwegian and International, responsible for the constructions have followed strict aesthetic standards in a way that harmonises with the surroundings and reinforces travellers’ appreciation of the great outdoors and unspoilt countryside. Inspired by the initial success of the project, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration and Norsk Form wanted to bring these eye-catching constructions to as many people as possible, this in turn resulted in the exhibition Detour. The exhibition has travelled the world, with stops in Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels and Bologna, and was most recently on view in the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, and at Center for Architecture in Philadelphia.
The exhibition Detour is filled with models and photos of some of the structures along the tourist routes. The most striking component of the exhibition may be the large wooden viewing chamber with brass-rimmed openings where visitors can peek inside at a film that winds along Norway’s scenic roads and bike paths and explores in greater detail some of the projects featured later in the exhibition.
See the exhibit, recently on view at Center for Architecture in Philadelphia, in New York from December 4 2009 through January 19 2010 at: Parsons The New School for Design, Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, 66 Fifth Ave, NYC.
Source: VisitNorway.com
