house, school, museum, post

Things are wrapping up here. Winding down. Easing into transition. It’s been awesome with the snow this last month. Constantly here, constantly cold. Just what I’d been expecting since October. The boots held up well. I made the right choice in holding off getting new ones.

If you read Tun, you know I got to go checked out the Bødtker place, a house by Fehn. The Bødtker’s weren’t home, so I couldn’t get in. It was built in two stages. The garage and the main house were built in the 60’s. The addition, a square multilevel tower, was built in the 80’s. They were, however, all conceived at the same time.

I am hoping to get up to Aukrust museum one day before I leave. I don’t know if that will work out. Also I’m hoping to hear from the people in the Schreiner house. I got an email form him in response to a letter I sent, and returned an email to him about a meeting, but haven’t heard anything back. This is the most frustrating thing in all my dealings with the Norwegians. They never answer emails. Hopefully I’ll hear something before I leave and get to see that place as well. The domestic architecture was the most difficult to see of Fehn’s. But overall I think I got pretty good coverage of the work.

I was hoping to do another draft of the thesis before I left but I don’t think I have the energy for it. I’ve been doing some reading for the introduction and I have some ideas, but I think I’ll wait to talk to my advisors before pushing ahead. I think I’m in pretty good position for finishing up.

I visited this school. I had found it a while ago, back in the summer. But didn’t check it out then and kept putting off going back. Finally I did and it was completely worth it. Just good architecture.

I may have mentioned the Oslo Architecture Museum before. It’s a Fehn building here in Oslo that they are building right now. I have been visiting it every couple of weeks or so since I got here, watching it come together. It won’t be finished before I leave, unfortunately, but it has been fun to watch it come together. I was there on Sunday taking pictures. The project is a remodel of the existing turn of the century building with the addition of an exhibit space. The exhibit space made up of glass wall with glass louvers that are intriguing from a daylight standpoint. These glass walls are surrounded by freestanding concrete walls maybe 6-8 feet tall. The top of the main space pokes up above these walls and the walls slide past each other to create entrances into what I imagine will by sort of an inner courtyard. It’ll be done in may, so the kids coming over on the Scandinavia program this summer will get to see it.

I’ve shipping my books back to the states. I have a lot of books. I brought a lot and acquired more since I’ve been here. They have these boxes you can buy at the post office that are prepaid for 10 kilograms (about 25 pounds). This all seems pretty straight forward, except I don’t know what 10 kilograms of books looks like. Which makes it a little bit of a hassle. So the other day I’m in the post office, talking to a post guy about my options and cost and how to handle the fact that I don’t know what 10 kilograms of books looks like, when this guys comes stumbling into the post.

He shambles up behind me and starts yelling in Norwegian. I ignore him cause, well, I got no idea what he’s saying. But everyone else is ignoring him also. No one looks at him. None of the post people tell him to settle down or get a hold of him self. And he’s going on and on I’m talking to the post guy and the post guy is talking to me and I turn around to show the post guy something and all of a sudden there are Norwegian cops there, pulling this guy out of the place. And he looks at me and starts apologizing, in English. “Sorry guy. Hey. Sorry!” I hadn’t even known I was involved. And no one in the place ever acknowledged him. And then he was gone. It looks like I’ll have to use 4 boxes to send my books back at a total cost of 1320 Norwegian kroner.