‘New Trelleborg’ nominated for the World Architecture Festival Awards 2016

Our project: ‘The Lost Shield – Revival of the Vikings at Trelleborg’ has been shortlisted for the prestigious World Architecture Festival Awards 2016 within the category ‘culture – future projects’. Earlier this year we won the competition for a new experience and knowledge center at the Danish Viking site “Trelleborg”.

Trelleborg and “New Trelleborg”
“Trelleborg” is one of the most well preserved Viking-sites in Scandinavia and is expected to be included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The fortress is part of a series of fortresses that the Viking king Harald Bluetooth constructed to protect his realm around the year 900 A.D. The primary attractions of the site include excavations of a substantial circular fortress, 16 houses inside the walls inhabited by mercenaries and their families, 15 storage and workshop houses outside the walls, 135 graves and an intact, wooden shield. The new experience and knowledge center “New Trelleborg” includes a café, lobby, multifunctional lecture space, offices, meeting rooms, spaces for volunteers, a workshop and exhibition area and a new layout plan guiding visitors around the site through site-centered narrative storytelling.

The Lost Shield – Architectural Concept
The design and main architectural concept of the visitor center is inspired by Denmark’s only preserved Viking shield, discovered at Trelleborg – lost in the mud by a Viking warrior more than a thousand years ago. The circular shape of the new center not only recalls the lost shield but also creates a symbolic affinity with the impressive fortress of the past. The sloping disc-like roof of the building expresses contemporary aesthetics and creates an open and inviting cover giving maximal freedom and flexibility to a modern visitor center. The visitor center lies sensitively placed in the landscape and, like a giant shield, skews upwards to offer fantastic views of its surroundings. While maintaining a respectful distance to Trelleborg, the building provides an excellent overview of the earthworks and landscape.

“We have recreated the Viking atmosphere with a gripping audio-visual universe of exhibition spaces, the crackling of the fireplace in the café, the tarred timber exterior cladding and the Viking sails decorating the facades. From the moment the visitor approaches the building, it is to be a sensuous experience where the boundaries between exhibition and architecture, past and present are dissolved.”
— Søren Mølbak

Recreating the Viking Atmosphere
We have recreated the Viking atmosphere with a gripping audio-visual universe of exhibition spaces, the crackling of the fireplace in the café, the tarred timber exterior cladding and the Viking sails decorating the facades”, explains Søren Mølbak and continues: “From the moment the visitor approaches the building, it is to be a sensuous experience where the boundaries between exhibition and architecture, past and present are dissolved.”
The project has been developed in collaboration with ALL Atelier Lorentzen Langkilde, GHB Landscape Architects, MOE Consulting Engineers, GODdesign by exhibition architect Gert Olsen, film director Rumle Hammerich and art director Søren Buus.

Read about the ‘The Lost Shield’ story on Dezeen Magazine