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The hottest architectural competition to take place in Scandinavia over the past few years was the Nordic Watercolor Museum in the small Swedish town of Skarhamn, just north of Gothenburg. With 386 entrants, it was the biggest competition ever held in Scandinavia. The results brought surprise, disappointment, and controversy. Although some of the top players in Swedish architecture entered (including Gert Wingrdh), the winner was a pair of little-known Danish architects, Niels Bruun and Henrik Corfitsen, who had teamed up for the competition.
Sweden was the big loser: None of its architects placed among the prizewinners, and the Swedish chairman of the jury, Peter Ohrstedt, declared that Swedish architecture and Swedish architectural education were now in a state of crisis. And the new building, with its pronounced Danish character, has not stilled the controversy. Startlingly successful with the public, the museum has been sharply attacked by Swedish architectural commentators, who accused it of being insensitively adapted to its site, dull, and not sufficiently representative of Nordic values. A visit to Skarhamn is no idle tour to a new museum facility, but a tiptoe among the sharp-edged shards of Nordic architectural politics.
The program was ambitious. The Nordic Watercolor Society wanted not only gallery spaces for the exhibition of watercolors from the five Nordic countries, but classroom studios for teaching, as well as a room for lectures and small concerts. A visiting artist program required small residential studios, and a restaurant and gift shop were planned for the 30,000 visitors projected annually.
Nestled in the cliffs alongside an ocean inlet and a small offshore island called Blockholmen, the...