Media Architectural Prize, Design Category 2010

Text: Péter Sugár

Design: Ferenc Tirbus

Situated on the shore of Lake Heddal to face a bay of the sea, Nottoden is a town in Norway with 12,000 inhabitants and a beautiful natural environment. It has been home to a blues festival organized every sumer and known all over Europe for years now. This is why the decision was made to advance Nottoden to be the „blues capital” of the continent. This spring an international architectural tender was posted inviting designs for its centre.

The diploma design by Ferenc Tirbus has thus been made based on a realistic, live programme, almost in competition with the design tender. The site chosen for this purpose is the area of a former ironworks still working 30 years ago but lebontott by now. The expectation is obviously the construction of an iconic building expressing the new profile of the town. This was the starting point of the concepts for location, orientation and forms reflected in the diploma design. Ferenc Tirbus projected a building with a character easy to recognize and identify when approaching the town either from the direction of the sea or from the town because of its characteristic iconic forms.