The Sloop museum in Bodø is the result of a long process dating back to 1924 when the sloop, Anna Karoline was taken ashore after decades of transporting goods along the northern shores of Norway.
Studio Name: Rintala Eggertsson Architects
Design Team: Dagur Eggertsson, Sami Rintala, Vibeke Jenssen, Thea Orderud and Simone Larch
Area: Bodø, Norway
Year: 2018
Size: 2117m2
Building costs: NOK 85.000.000
Location: 67.268111, 14.427267
Consultants: MEP / HVAC from Norconsult, and landscape design by Feste
Photography Credits: Ernst Furuhatt
With lack of adequate budgets the vessel was left to the mercy of the elements until it was given a temporary shelter in the 1950’s. By then it had started falling apart and if it hadn’t been for the enormous amount of work by volunteers during the following decades it would never have been saved for future generations and the last Norwegian sloop had been lost.
In 2011, the museum of the Nordland county in the north of Norway decided to end the process of decay and give the vessel a permanent shelter. Rintala Eggertsson were given the task of proposing a solution which could also become a museum of the so called sloop traffic which was an important factor in sustaining life along the north-Norwegian coastline.
The museum proposal consisted of three building volumes set next to each other; one being a service building, the second one an exhibition space and the third and main one the permanent shelter for the sloop Anna Karoline. The central building volume was shaped after the vessel itself in order to achieve a maximum efficiency in area usage and at the same time to allow the visitors to come as close to Anna Karoline, the main artefact in the building. The other two were then fitted to the first one with the same angular geometry that helped to scale it down in the natural environment in the Bodøsjøen area of Bodø. That gave the three building volumes stronger visual connection with the surroundings, the battered bedrocks and the mountains in the horizon.
