Alexander Teddy / MT

Jarmund's design for the Norwegian Embassy in Katmandu was among those on show at the exhibition.

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Norway is promoting an architectural darling of recent times, Kristin Jarmund, in an exhibition in Moscow’s factory-cum-exhibition center, Proyekt-Fabrika. Selections of Jarmund’s work have hitherto been trotted out at exhibitions in Spain, Mexico and North America as part of a mini world tour being promoted by the Norwegian National Museum of Art, where Jarmund designed a new interior café in 2002.

‘Mini’ is the appropriate word for the current exhibition, which amounts to two design models and a number of pictures of built designs. It seems most of her commissions are state projects, but Jarmund explained that the absence of her residential designs from the exhibition was because she was not able to display photos of people’s private homes publicly.

Jarmund’s architecture is a strong exponent of the new-age Norway: a colorful exterior with a culture of crisp functionality and wealth. Herself an Oslo native, she was educated in Trondheim in northern Norway, then in London, before returning to Oslo, where she set up her firm Kristin Jarmund Architects in 1985 and later also served as head of the Oslo city architectural committee. In this role, she got a taste of political whim: “it can be  tough to influence politicians over matters [of city architecture]... but all the procedures — the agreements, meetings and doubts make up an important part of the process because serious and complex decisions shouldn’t be taken at random,” Jarmund said in a recent interview with Vedomosti.

Jarmund’s buildings are all clean-looking designs that echo the tidy streets and interiors seen in her home country. From the Benterud School in Lørenskog (1999) to Nydalen metro station (2003) and the Norwegian Embassy in Katmandu (2008), there is a freshness about her work that understandably makes her a sought-after feature in the land of the Vikings.

Embassies are a prevailing theme as well in this exhibition, which has been promoted extensively by the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow. On its web site, the embassy gives an article about Jarmund a place of prominence, adding weight to the point raised by Vedomosti that this world tour of her work is an exercise in “propaganda for Norwegian architecture”.

Yet the designs have been described as atypical of Scandinavian architecture, even though the majority of her designs are for Norway itself. While Jarmund may not use the timber traditions of stave churches so associated with Norwegian construction, she is not alone in incorporating landscaping and modern materials with elegant and bright design. Snøhetta, the Oslo-based company responsible for the city’s new and daring opera house, was awarded the Barcelona prize for cultural buildings at the 2008 World Architecture Festival.

Proyekt-Fabrika, this latest stop on Jarmund’s global jolly, is a messy-looking factory operation that houses art exhibitions and yet still has a production facility for specialist types of paper. Tatyana Dobrovina from the center, who described herself as a “sort-of curator” of the display, said that this is a unique concept for Moscow, and part of an industrial-themed trend for galleries across Europe that was popularized by London’s Tate Modern.

Stuck out beyond the third transport ring, Proyekt-Fabrika is a studenty-feeling independent venture — a somewhat surprising venue for an architecture exhibition by the Norwegian civil favorite that Jarmund seems to be.

The exhibition runs until Feb. 17, 2010, before moving on to St. Petersburg.
www.proektfabrika.ru