Project: Double house Goksøyr/Engen&Lohne, architect Knut Hjeltnes Architects

Few other Norwegian architects have so passionately admitted debt to Japanese architectural culture. Knut Hjeltnes also unashamedly swears allegiance to Nordic modernism. This might come as a surprise when one studies his work, as it is by no means about copying. Hjeltnes combines astonishingly compact spatial organizations of program with a sensibility of structure and tectonic richness. In every commission his incremental experimentation steadily expands this vocabulary, with little fuzz, somewhat like a humble samurai who underplays his abilities. As Francesca Iarrusso states in her essay: “In Godals vei, multiple worlds converge: the measured essentiality of Norwegian functionalism, the compositional and relational lightness of Eastern spatial traditions, and the subversive potential that tradition itself can conceal.”