Dorte Mandrup
On the edge of an almost endless glacial landscape lies the Ilulissat Icefjord Centre – a visitor centre in West Greenland that tells the story of the area’s UNESCO-protected nature, history and culture, and the significance of climate change for the entire area. The building was designed by architect Dorte Mandrup and has attracted great attention both nationally and internationally with its spectacular and organic design, which harmoniously blends into the Greenlandic nature.
In 2018, Dorte Mandrup was invited to the Venice Biennale to present the project. Here, she exhibited a model of the visitor center, which was built of slender brackets that highlighted the building's dynamic design language. Stouenborg, in collaboration with lighting designer Jesper Kongshaug, was tasked with creating the lighting that would illustrate the changing of the day and seasons in Greenland's nature and give the observer the experience of what it feels like to observe an almost endless ice landscape.
The model was placed on a plateau in a room with a circular horizon as a backdrop. The transition between the circular horizon and the room itself was discreetly blurred using cold smoke, creating the illusion of looking out into infinity. The lighting was dynamic and changed with smooth transitions to illustrate day and night and the change of seasons, where the choice of colors was carefully selected to reflect the nuances experienced in Greenlandic nature.
The model of the Isfjord Center was also treated with a fluorescent substance, so it stood as a luminous monument when the light was turned on. The visualization of the Greenlandic landscape was synchronized with a sound stage, where Stouenborg was responsible for the actual programming and video technique.
The project was later shown at the exhibition "Unforgettable Landscapes" at the Danish Architecture Center, where the circular horizon was replaced by a 360-degree video recording of a Greenlandic landscape, which was projected onto the walls around the model. Here too, the lighting was intended to create the illusion of how the colors of the sky and landscape change throughout the day and year, where the same effects and color choices were used.
We have also previously worked with the exhibition 'Pillars of sound', which opened in the Free Exhibition Building in the spring of 2017. You can read more about that here.