A new Russian Orthodox church is being built in the industrial town of Nikel on the Kola peninsula. Its construction involves the use of traditional building techniques, recalling an architecture that predates the founding of the town.
Walking a local neighbourhood with a group of young people in Murmansk, we encountered new urban scenes and childhood memories. This provides us with an opportunity to think about the future of urban space.
I am standing at the edge of the town. The hills are not the hills. I gaze at them, waiting for a word. Words and landscape. I see them as flat topped … buttes. Horizontals cutting across the horizon. A symmetry in their patterns.
The AHO Future North team has met up locally in Kirkenes with our partners at the Barents Institute. This is our first joint visit to the Circumpolar North. Our project team has gathered together a diverse set of interests and competencies: landscape theory, architecture, interaction design, ethnography, political science, and narrative.
After some hours of being on the road and stopping now and then to observe the landscape we turn a corner and suddenly instead of the expanse of rolling hills and rocky outcrops covered in autumn birch is a wide and open valley. The road bisects this unexpected space and we all comment on the enormous fields. In the bright sunlight we see that they are already all mown. This is Zapadanya Litsa River.