Three structures by Peter Zumthor in the Allmanayuvet gorge in southern Norway appeared as part of the architectural program "National Tourist Routes": this program involves the creation of recreation areas, art objects, viewing platforms on the most picturesque road sections. Among the authors of the project are mainly Norwegians, but the Swiss Zumtor was entrusted with two objects at once: the Steilneset memorial in Vardø on the Barents Sea (it opened in 2010-2011) and the Allmanayuvet complex on the route running through the province of Ryfylke.
In both cases, the architect worked, as usual, very long and carefully. Allmanayuvet was entrusted to him in 2002, construction began in 2009, and the new complex only opened last month. All three buildings - a small museum, a cafe and a sanitary block - are built on a pine timber frame under a corrugated zinc roof. The actual volumes with rooms inside are fixed on the frame so as to slightly fluctuate from the wind. Their walls are made of plywood, insulation and a layer of black waterproof impregnation; the interiors are also painted black. In addition, the objects are located as if unreliable: toilets hang over the slope, the cafe and the museum are raised on thin piles. All this should remind of the danger and hard work of miners who mined ore in Allmanayuvet, as well as of the construction of this mine, from which, at best, the foundations remain. That is why Zumthor abandoned the initially selected dry masonry (only retaining walls are stacked this way) in favor of wood and black. Since the focus is on the fate of the miners, the possibility of a visit to the mine is also provided.
The Allmanayuvet field was developed for a very short time, from 1881 to 1899. With high world prices for zinc, an extremely labor-intensive method was profitable: miners mined pieces of ore, threw them from the entrance to the mine down into the gorge so that these blocks would be split into smaller pieces (in this place Zumtor put the museum), then they were washed in the Sturelva River (there is now a parking lot and a sanitary block) and were taken to the neighboring town of Syoud, from where they were sent by sea to a metallurgical plant in Wales. At the end of the century, zinc prices fell and the mine closed. However, a short period of prosperity (12 tons of ore were mined in 18 years) marked the beginning of the industrial development of Syouda and the entire Ryfylke region.
The three buildings are connected by gravel roads and stone stairs. The route starts from the aforementioned parking lot and sanitary block and leads to a cafe, in the dark interior of which light-wood furniture is placed, and from the windows there are panoramic views of the surroundings - as elsewhere in Norway, the main "attraction" in any circumstances. In the museum located further, there are only two showcases illuminated through the openings in the roof, one with historical documents, diagrams and sketches of Zumthor, the second with genuine miner's tools. All exhibits were selected by the architect himself. In the end opposite to the entrance there is a window, from where you can see not only the surroundings, but also the bottom of the gorge, where the ore was thrown. Neither the shop windows nor the foundations of historical buildings (which, in particular, they flank the cafe) do not find explanatory labels: visitors are not prompted by thoughts and emotions.
