Conditions and Beyond

Dorte Mandrup’s lecture focused on her landmark projects that were, or are currently being created at UNESCO World Heritage sites. The Icefjord Centre is located 250 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle and the Wadden Sea Centre, a thatched exhibition centre, on Denmark’s rough West coast. The architect gave an emphatic account of her approach to construction projects in such sensitive environments. The starting point of the process is to understand and investigate the prevailing conditions. What it takes is a comprehensive interpretation of all accessible facts and ­feelings, far beyond the mere level of observation.

Dorte Mandrup pointed out, “Embedding a building into a landscape gives us the opportunity to emphasize the uniqueness of the place. The relationship between the physicality of a building and the vastness of a landscape brings the potential to work at countless different scales. We can bring out the drama and splendour of a great natural landscape through the arrangement, shape and types of materials we use in a building”