Ken Schluchtmann: Architektur und Landschaft in Norwegen / Architecture and Landscape in Norway

Norway’s National Tourist Route programme commissioned architectural projects — viewing platforms, observation stations, memorials — in places where the landscape already sets the terms. For this book Ken Schluchtmann drove more than twenty thousand kilometres through the country, working on an independent photographic project, and photographing the buildings the Norwegian government has had built along those routes in recent years.

His method is deliberate and consistent: no artificial light, photographs made at dusk or beneath cloud, a clear and cool register that nonetheless leaves the subject with a sensual presence. The World Architecture Festival in Singapore named him architecture photographer of the year in 2012 and again in 2013, before the book appeared.

The subjects are particular. Snøhetta’s wildlife observation station; Reiulf Ramstad’s terraces at Trollstigen, with the steep drop of view they open onto; and the Steilneset Memorial, designed by Peter Zumthor with Louise Bourgeois, which commemorates the victims of seventeenth-century witch trials. These are separate buildings in separate parts of the country, reached through one photographer’s eye and an extended photographic project, and they arrive on the page with a shared visual temperature.

The publication is clothbound, 160 pages, 107 photographs, 277 by 348 millimetres, designed by Julia Günther, with texts by Jan Andresen and Christiane Bürklein. Hatje Cantz issued it in October 2014 in a German-and-English edition.

For a collector, the interest lies in the meeting of a defined photographic manner with a defined body of built work: a photographer’s own survey of a national building programme, documenting architecture commissioned along Norway’s tourist routes. The book records both the architecture and the way one photographer chose to see it.

The Berlin photographer Ken Schluchtmann (* 1970) is known for his signature style. Clear and cool, his im­ages are taken without the use of artificial lighting— at dusk or beneath a cloudy sky—lending his subject matter a sensual quality. The World Architecture Fes­tival in Singapore recognized his outstanding work, naming him the architecture photographer of the year in 2012 and 2013. To produce the photographs for this book, an independent project, Schluchtmann traveled over twenty thousand kilometers, passing through dramatic landscapes and profiling the inno­vative architecture projects commissioned by the Norwegian government in recent years along the country’s National Tourist Route: from the wildlife ob­servation station at Dovre National Park designed by Snøhetta to the dizzying views provided by Reiulf Ramstad’s terraces at Trollstigen, and the Steilneset Memorial by Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois, which commemorates the victims of seven­teenth-century witch trials.

Designed by: Julia Günther
Texts by: Jan Andresen, Christiane Bürklein
German, English
October 2014, 160 Pages , 107 Photos
clothbound
277mm x 348mm
ISBN:978-3-7757-3837-8

Publisher page editorial text:
The Berlin photographer Ken Schluchtmann (* 1970) is known for his signature style. Clear and cool, his im­ages are taken without the use of artificial lighting— at dusk or beneath a cloudy sky—lending his subject matter a sensual quality. The World A

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