Information about the speakers
Kjetil Trædal Thorsen was born on the Norwegian coastal island of Karmøy. After several years in Germany and England, he studied architecture in Graz, Austria. When he completed his studies in 1985, he co-founded the office Snøhetta with his founding partners Craig Dykers and Christoph Kapeller.
Today, Snøhetta is an internationally known practice of architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, product- and brand design, with more than 200 employees from 30 different nations and subsidiaries in Oslo, New York, Innsbruck, San Francisco, Singapore, Adelaide, Paris and Stockholm. Thorsen leads the office in Oslo.
The studio has completed a diverse range of international prize-winning projects, including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the National Norwegian Opera and Ballet in Oslo, and the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion in New York City.
As a member of the Norwegian Architectural Association (NAL), Thorsen has served on their design competition committee and also as a juror on other various design competitions in Europe. From 2004 until 2008, he has been a professor at the Institute for Experimental Studies in Architecture of the University of Innsbruck.
www.snohetta.com
Siv Helene Stangeland was born in Stavanger, Norway. Before she started studying architecture in AHO Oslo, she studied French and Art in Bordeaux for a year. She spent 3 years in Barcelona during her architectural studies, following classes at the ETSAB, the Technical University in Barcelona, and the art school in Massana, Andorra, where she finally decided to become an architect.
With completing her architectural studies at AHO in 1996, she and her partner, the Austrian architect Reinhard Kropf, founded the office HELEN & HARD in her hometown Stavanger, Norway. The office now has around 30 employees from 10 different nations and another subsidiary in Oslo.
Stangeland and Kropf design a wide range of projects, from domestic to public buildings and also architectural installations in open spaces. One of their core topics is probably the exploration of sustainable design, as they describe their philosophy with „relational design“ and „creating architectural solutions that shall serve and inspire people to a sustainable life“.
HELEN & HARD also completed a diverse range of prize-winning projects, such as the Norway Pavilion at the Expo Shanghai (2010) and the student housing in Soerhauggata (2015).
www.helenhard.no
Stig L. Andersson founded SLA Architects in 1994. Having studied nuclear physics, Japanese culture and chemistry before becoming an architect, Andersson graduated from The Royal Danish School of Architecture in 1986. From 1986-1989 Andersson moved to Japan with Japanese ministerial research funds. Andersson was particularly interested in Japanese culture’s relationship with substance, space and changeability – fields he has integrated and developed in his own practice since 1994.
Beginning as a (purely) landscape architectural practice, SLA has developed into an inter- national interdisciplinary organization working with urban design, landscape and city planning. Renowned for his sensuous and poetic work, Andersson combines unique amenity values based on the aesthetics of nature with cutting-edge urban design. He is a professor in aesthetic design at the University of Copenhagen and is a much sought-after lecturer and teacher at universities and architecture schools in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Stig L. Andersson has received numerous national and international awards, including The European Landscape Award, The RIBA Award, Nykredit’s Architecture Prize and in 2014 the C.F. Hansen Medal – the highest national honour given to a Danish architect awarded by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
www.sla.dk
Watch the talks
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In September 2018 three well-known architects from Norway and Denmark will be on stage at the Vulkan Arena, Oslo. They will talk about their personal experiences and important creative periods within their work and, as always at „Architects, not Architecture“, not a word may be lost about their projects themselves.
„Architects, not Architecture“ – as the name suggests – provides a glimpse on great personalities of architecture. The event series is not about the projects of the architects, but the people behind, their professional backgrounds and formative individual experiences, that shaped the projects we all know.
The three following architects will present themselves on stage in the Vulkan Arena with a 20mins. lecture. After each speech the host Fermín will welcome his guests for a short interview:
Kjetil Thorsen, co-Founder of Snøhetta, Oslo/New York/Innsbruck/San Francisco, www.snohetta.com
Siv Helene Stangeland, co-Founder of Helen&Hard, Stavanger/Oslo, www.helenhard.no
Stig L. Andersson, Founder of SLA, Copenhagen/Aarhus/Oslo, www.sla.dk.
Let´s spend a wonderful evening together, seizing the opportunity to get inspired and gain some new perspectives!
This event is kindly supported by our partners Schüco, Jung, Grohe and BoConcept.