Snøhetta’s buildings aim to integrate and embellish their surroundings, standing not as solitary monuments but equal participants in the urban landscape. Their signature piece, the Oslo Opera House, is a monumental and forward-thinking structure that embodies the holistic philosophy of the firm. Finished in 2008 after a five-year construction process, the new opera house became an immense success and primary catalyst for the cultural renaissance of opera in Norway.
The firm came off to an auspicious start by winning a bid to design the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt. Inaugurated in 2002, this spiritual successor to the ancient world‘s repository of knowledge was an important project for Snøhetta and testament to their conceptual brilliance. The exterior is the most striking example of this, where carvings in 120 scripts on walls of Aswan granite illustrate both the geographical location and historic role of the Library of Alexandria.
Later, the firm made headlines in their successful bid for the project of designing the memorial museum at the World Trade Center Site. Transgressing the confines of so-called “Nordic architecture”, the geometric spitzgefühl of Snøhetta’s architects has blessed them with global appeal and a universal language of concentric and polygonal immediacy.
Lecture Overview:
May 22, Greenwood’s China tour started off with a visit to the Ullens Center for Contemporary Arts in Beijing. Evening the next day he held a lecture at the School of Architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
May 24-25, Greenwood spoke to students from Jiaotong and Tongji University in Shanghai at two separate presentations. Both universities are home to prestigious architecture and engineering departments.
May 27, Greenwood’s final lectures were held at Guangdong Academy of Fine Arts and the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou.
Individual Event Pages
Beijing Event (Ullens Center of Contemporary Art)
Shanghai Event (Tongji University)
Shanghai Event (Jiaotong University)
Guangzhou Events (Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and South China University of Technologies)