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Bodø City Hall

Jura Limestone

Bodø City Hall, natural stone facade, Jura Limestone

Location: Bodø, Norway

Natural stone: Jura Limestone

Colour: Beige

Finish: Honed C220

Architect: Atelier Lorentzen Langkilde

Photography by: Adam Mørk

Just north of the polar circle, Danish studio ALL (Atelier Lorentzen Langkilde) has designed a contemporary city hall for the municipality of Bodø, Norway. The 12,000 m2 City Hall consists of a new building and the transformation and linking of two existing, preserved buildings. The new town hall unites the three buildings into one flexible plan, organized with a circular flow around a spectacular wooden atrium. The new city hall is a crystalline stone volume, with facades that slope towards the lower, existing buildings. The angles of the façade are drawn from the existing rooflines. This unique faceted facade geometry catches the dramatic changing light conditions north of the polar circle. Bodø, Norway is situated on a peninsula north of the polar circle. The city is bounded by mountains and the harsh Norwegian Sea. In the city center, the old city hall has been transformed and extended with a new iconic building to a 12,000 m2 modern workspace for 400 employees. The new building is a keystone linking and transforming the flow of the existing buildings to create a flexible, circular flow around a tall and dramatic atrium. This atriums acts as The Citizens’ Forum. The Citizens’ Forum is a public square with meeting rooms and public services. Workspaces extend up five floors in connection with the atrium. There is a canteen on the 6th and top floor with magnificent views towards the surrounding ocean and mountains. The existing buildings on the site are the old city hall, with a brown plaster façade, and the old national bank, clad in a richly patterned local natural stone. Both facades are preserved. The new building are cladded in the polished brownish Jura Beige natural stone. It catches the colors of the brown plaster façade and with it´s the rich pattern it reflects the patterns of the stone on the old bank building. This creates a beautiful coherence between the buildings. The new building is shaped with vertical facades and sloping facades mirroring the angels of the roofs on the existing buildings. This forms a dramatic sculptural volume. The vertical facades are made of one story high facade elements and the sloping facades consist of a roof element cladded with natural stone elements. The vertical and sloping facades are visually linked by continual horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines formed by the divisions of the stone cladding. A demanding construction with very low tolerances but with a highly unique expression where façade and roof seamless transform between each other. Each window in the stone façade has a deep window clearing that resembles the geometry of the larger sculpture creating a singular volume as a whole and in detail. The multiple angels of the stone cladding catches the skylight and cast shadow for an ever-changing play of light. The color of the stone changes from bright orange during the midsummer nights to an almost blue colored stone during the winter days with only indirect skylight because the sun do not make it above the horizon. Jura Limestone beige  transforms with the light of the north! The interior is lined with light ash wood, both on the walls and ceilings. The uniform wooden lining creates a warm, Scandinavian home-like feeling and is combined with an office layout based on new ways of working. In this way the home workspace has been brought to the office. The atrium around which the workspaces wrap recalls a Piranesi drawing, with the staggered balconies, setback atrium fronts, varied floor heights, and a vertiginous art piece, “Dikt til Byråkratiet” (“Poem for the Bureaucracy”), by the artist: Per Kristian Nygård, mounted on the wall and spanning the full height of the atrium. The landscape around the city hall consists of beautifully shaped public areas and squares with seating. These are covered in natural stone.

Bodø City Hall, natural stone facade, Jura Limestone
Bodø City Hall, natural stone facade, Jura Limestone
Bodø City Hall, natural stone facade, Jura Limestone

Jura Limestone

Beige, honed C220