A new chapter: British architects unveil state-of-the-art Arctic library

The Bod concert hall, Norway, will provide a new home for the Arctic Philharmonic. Photographs: David Grandorge

Its an unusual view to behold from a municipal library. The midday sun hangs just above the horizon, casting a heavenly glow across the water, beneath a sky streaked with pink, orange and blue. A foreground of fishing huts and boats armed with whaling harpoons completes the picture, which could come straight from a Visit Norway tourist brochure.

But this is an unlikely project: a new 110m library and concert hall in the Arctic town of Bod (population 50,000), designed by a small London practice whose most substantial built work prior to winning the contract was an office extension in Sheffield.

It was quite a leap in scale, for us and the town, says David Howarth, director of DRDH architects, which won the project in a competition in 2009. It was a stark contrast to be working on this in the UK, just as libraries were being closed by the dozen and procurement processes make it impossible for small practices to win work of this size.

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Described by the towns mayor as the largest municipal project ever, and the symbol of Bod entering a new era, the scheme is part of a wider attempt to lure people north and rebalance Norways bottom-heavy cultural offering. When the civil aviation authority was recently moved to Bod as part of the national decentralisation programme, 40% of its employees quit.

We wanted to give people a reason to stay, rather than just passing through on the way to the popular Lofoten Islands, says former mayor Odd-Tore Fygle, who began planning the Kulturhus project back in 1999.

But not all the towns residents were so keen. DRDHs stark white concrete design was variously lambasted as looking like a margarine factory, a fish oil plant and something lifted from the eastern bloc. The Germans did a lot of damage to our city in the war, wrote one furious local. And now youve come to finish the job.

But in the event, 20% of the towns entire population turned up to the opening of the complex, aptly christened Stormen (Norwegian for storm). And now theyve had a chance to look inside, most people couldnt be happier with the finished building.

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A new chapter: British architects unveil state-of-the-art Arctic library