Project: Nipe Summer House, architect: Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk

In 2009, the summerhouse at Nipe in Risør, designed by Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk, was celebrated as the most important Norwegian modern .hytte» by the popular press. The small summerhouse is situated on a barren terrain, 70 meters from the shore-line and 20 meters above sea-level, touching the site on point foundations, its footprint tailored to the trees and vegetation. The adaption to local ecologies, the reflective spatial sequences, the tectonic character and the refined wooden detailing are all characteristics of the Oslo school in modern Norwegian architecture.

This volume presents the full set of drawings for the Nipe project in chronological order, from the first site visit to the finished building, while photographs from 1997 and 2021 document the life of the building. Wilfried Wang’s essay .On the edge» characterizes the summerhouse as a .basic hut» that offers .framed views across internal and external spaces», and represents a very specific approach to architecture and site: a .compositionally logical approach to building in and with nature, one that does not dominate or even eradicate it, but one that leads a life in parallel.» In the essay .Nipe, 24 years later», the architect reflects on his way of working and the decisions taken in the design process from September 1995 through September 1997, relating the summer house to his architectural oeuvre.

Essay by Wilfried Wang.
Edited by Karl Otto Ellefsen and Dagfinn Sagen.