Norway's newest art gallery looks like a twisted deck of cards, fanned out across the winding Randselva river. Designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingles Group, the gallery is just as trippy on the inside, as it appears on the outside.
The Twist gallery recently opened within Kistefos Sculpture Park, just outside of Norway's capital Oslo. Built around a historical pulp mill, the Twist is set to become a major cultural and architectural destination, providing a literal twist to the park's artistic offerings. It also provides infrastructure, doubling as a pedestrian bridge that connects two riverbanks that make up the Kistefos's forest-lined cultural path. So visitors roaming the park to see work by artists like Anish Kapoor, Lynda Benglis and Fernando Botero, among others, cross the Twist to complete the art tour.
The gallery is accessible from both ends of the river and is filled with light from windows that warp in the middle of the structure around the twist. The idea is for the building to act as another sculpture in the park, while also offering gallery space within. Inside, white-painted fir slats clad the floor, wall and ceiling as one uniform backdrop for Kistefos’ exhibitions. Walking through the gallery is pretty trippy as visitors experience the twisted space as though walking through a camera shutter, no matter which direction they enter from.
"The Twist is a hybrid spanning several traditional categories: it’s a museum, it’s a bridge, it’s an inhabitable sculpture," says Bjarke Ingels, founder and director of BIG. Conceived to embrace and reflect its natural surroundings, the building takes on a new appearance when viewed from different vantage points. As Dave Zahle, a partner at Big explains: "as you approach the Twist, you start to notice the museum reflecting the trees, the hills and the water below, constantly glimmering and changing its appearance in dialogue with nature."
The Twist is BIG’s first project unveiled in Norway. It was officially opened by Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Frederik this week. Its programme of events kicks off with 'Hodgkin and Creed - Inside Out' from 18 September until 17 November, 2019.
