Smacked on the outskirts of Dovrefjell National Park, Snøhetta provides for a mythical experience for visitors. With sustainable architecture in mind, elements such as solid construction and natural lines come together in a perfectly harmonious manner. I’ve got to get my ass there someday.

SPONSOR

Starving after a hike near the Trollwall, the tallest vertical rock face in Europe? It’s now possible to have something to eat while admiring the view of the towering cliffs in this impressive restaurant, designed by Reiulf Ramstad Norway. The M-shaped glass roof really looks fantastic from the inside and the outside.

Dråpe (which is Norwegian for ‘water droplet’) are one of my favorite bands. Their sound is creative, chilled, and laidback. I’m sure that they’re going to hit it big it Norway this year.

If you’re sporting some decent chops, and you have some time (and money) to spare, you can join the Beard Team USA Trip to Iceland and Norway for the 2011 World Beard and Moustache Championships between May 8 to May 19. Yes, salute the hirsute!

While the intention is purely practical, there is something about the grass roofs of Norway that remind me of a fairy-tale fantasy. For hundreds of years, many houses in Norway have installed turf roofs to provide good insulation and help stabilise the home under its weight. It kind of makes the recent trend in vertical living gardens look old hat, don’t you think?

SPONSOR

From rhubarb mimicking that infamous Marilyn Monroe pose, to cherries sweetly kissing, the quirky illustrations that adorn these bottles are brilliant and bold. Good thing too since Food Story, the Norwegian brand behind this new line of organic juices, is a concept café, boutique, and restaurant that aims to inspire through food. This series of ecological drinks does just that, having been developed in conjunction with local and organic farmers to produce a range of tasty fruity, all-natural flavors.

Designed by Norwegian creative agency Vju, the bottles feature a strong packaging concept paired with bright, striking colors and unpredictable graphics strewn across the swanky labels. So whether it’s the rhubarb or apple you’re after, the whole line of Food Story’s lovely, thirst-quenching delights are available at their cafes around the country. Great excuse to hop a plane to Norway; not that you needed one.

Norwegian duo Royksopp — Torbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge — not only create the warmest, sublimely uplifting and melodic electronica, but their music videos are always stupendously creative, as reflected in this selection of some of their finest.

It’s soothing and sumptuous. It’s Zebra by Beach House. The harmonious opening track of Teen Dream is lovely and ridden with reverb. I don’t care if the album was leaked early. These songs will endure the test of time, just like their self-titled album has.

To be held in Trondheim, Norway, on May 14, 2011, the World Beard and Moustache Championships is a big deal. A BIG DEAL. Apparently, the United States is the ‘world’s new facial hair super power, having captured twelve world championship titles out of eighteen categories plus overall at the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Anchorage, Alaska in 2009′. So if you have a good handlebar, if you can connect the dots, then the next major event in the ‘sport of bearding will be the Beard Team USA Nationals in Bend, Oregon on June 5, 2010, where $5000 in cash prizes will go to best beards and moustaches in the USA’. [self-portrait photo by Eric Harvey Brown]

SPONSOR

What’s this? Well, it’s Take On Me by A-Ha performed on Mario Paint Composer. Aha! Ok, so it doesn’t quite have the punch of the original version. But the melody will still stay ingrained in your head for hours.

My wife and I have a little black puppy, a furry bundle of mischief called Selma Lou. Perhaps one day we’ll have her immortalized in an artwork by Anders Malmø. The Norwegian artist has a thing for mutts. And it’s very fun thing indeed.

For the video for their latest single, This Must Be It, Norwegian uber-producers Röyksopp ditched the futuristic stylings and went back to their … ah … roots. Or at least, the roots of a motley collection of tribal dancers. Interesting.

I saw Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience play the other week in New York. As a long time fan of the group, this was a much anticipated show. And while I was a little disappointed that they opened the set playing their entire new album — Declaration of Dependence — from beginning to end (which no one had been able to hear yet), and not any of their earlier material, there were some truly beautiful songs amongst it all that have quickly become oft-repeated favorites. At the top of that list is this typically wistful and melancholic track, 24-25.

SPONSOR

I may not have a drop of Viking blood in me, but when I hear bands like Wardruna, I feel like lighting a fire and breaking out the cask of mead. A side project of occasional Gorgoroth drummer Kvitrafn and featuring Gorgoroth frontman Gaahl on vocals, the band attempts to capture the lost sounds of pre-Christian Norway, generating an ambient, folk-based sound that invokes pagan spirits and Nordic gods. Many black metal bands have put out acoustic albums, but the absence of guitars and the use of goat horns and other such traditional instruments sets this apart from other pagan folk projects.

There’s a sense of beautiful unease about Celine Clanet’s photo essay, Máze, the icy environment creating a gentle juxtaposition against the subtle warmth of the colors. Of the series, she says: ‘I lived for several months in Máze, up to the north of the Arctic Circle, in Norway. There, I met these quiet people, melancholic, captivating, very proud of their Sami village and territory, proud of these landscapes. They are constantly gazing at it with binoculars which they never separate from, even at home. I have captured these Sami people, along with houses and reindeers that should not be here today as they are flooded with waters from a dam project that the Norwegian government planned in early 70s, but fortunately aborted. This series is all about capturing the perfect moment, when time doesn’t exist anymore and night is gone, at which point they immerse themselves in tasks such as fishing through an ice hole in Suolojarvi Lake, or riding the snowscooter across the tundra; talking, or laying down, doing nothing, saying nothing. Just being’.

We have reported on Danish firm, JDS Architects, before. And here their memorable work continues. This glorious design for the Holmenkollen Ski Jump in Oslo is the result of an international competition and is to be completed in time for the 2011 World Championships. The ski jump is an existing landmark on the hillside northwest of Oslo’s city centre. However, the renovation will ensure the jump glows, kinks and projects a shaft of light into the sky. The top has been clipped to form a flat platform, with a heated floor to melt any snow, to offer 360 degrees views for the public.

A new idea has emerged in Norway that we think could be the precursor to things to come in the way our societies interact and develop. The general gradual demise of traditional gathering places such as town halls, community centers and churches has seemingly gone in hand with a generational shift and sharp increase in online virtual communities. However, humans still need to rub shoulders at some point to get things done, until, say, we perfect the sensitive hologram. In the meantime, places like Transplant could be the gathering points. With an increasing set of mobile businesspeople, places where idea creation and collaboration can occur will be jewels in the landscape. These individuals are not interested in carrying or owning much more than a mobile and laptop. So a place to gather with other minds, with shared resources such as material rooms, material workshops, prototype workshops, design shops, food and a bar, seem to us to be very attractive. With creativity becoming a broad future currency, these kinds of places could form the basis of progressive communities.

SPONSOR

Norwegian illustrator and designer Christina Magnussen studied at the Westerdals School of Communication in Oslo and Central Saint Martins in London. Of her work she says, ‘I’m currently very inspired by abstact forms and surrealism combined with hand drawings’.

The Norwegian design studio Grandpeople produce a range of graphic design, illustration and art direction that is varied and always interesting. Clients are based in fashion, music, art and culture, which make for engaging projects plus cool illustration and design techniques. Plus, their logo is one of the best I’ve seen in ages.

Do the Norwegians know something we don’t? On a remote island near the North Pole they’re going to build a seed vault that is able to survive future cataclysmic events such as asteroid strikes, nuclear war or climate change. Constructed 120 metres into a mountain, this doomsday vault is costing the Norwegian government five million US dollars and is due for completion in 2008. Money well spent? Only time will tell.