ARCHITECTURE & NATURE Part IV:Reiulf Ramstad-Upon Landscapes

How do landscape and architecture complement each other? We met with Reiulf Ramstad of the award-winning Norwegian architecture office Reiulf Ramstad Architects, who in this video shares how the landscape is the foundation for their architecture, and why he believes that travelling enrichens and expands an architect’s outlook. Ramstad talks about the inner and the outer landscape, and how the places that we experience become a part of us: “They become like chapters in your life.” For an architect, he feels, it is important to travel in order to “understand the DNA of the place,” and as a result, you always carry this knowledge with you as a part of your “baggage.” In continuation of this, in our global and increasingly nomadic world, Ramstad believes in working in a way that allows you to apply this knowledge that you carry with you: “You’re faced with so many impressions, but the difficulty is to maintain concentration because everything is like a digital cloud. So I believe in working within a format and to be present.”

Reiulf Ramstad (b. 1962) is the founder, Graduate Architect and Design Director of Reiulf Ramstad Architects (RRA) – an award-winning architecture, landscape architecture and design firm founded in 1995 and based in Oslo, Norway. The firm is internationally known for their work in Norway, and their designs range from private residential to large civic works, such as schools, restaurants, public transit stations, museums and tourist routes. They are recipients of prestigious awards such as several Architizer A+ Awards and the Inaugural American Architecture Prize.

Reiulf Ramstad was interviewed by Lasse Andersson, 2018, The interview is made in collaboration with the Utzon Center in Aalborg, Denmark in connection with the exhibition “In the World of an Architect – Reiulf Ramstad Architects”, Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard, Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner, Edited by: Rasmus Quistgaard, © Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2018