National tourist route Trollstigen

A "tourist route" in a place where the experience of the landscape is the most crucial ingredient of the tourist attraction is a bit awkward, most of the times. That's because the inherent ideologies behind the two aspects don't match. "Nature" implicitly means "roaming free in the wilderness", whereas a "tourist route" means "being guided along a fixed path".

The logical conclusion is that a good tourist route is one along which one is guided through nature, but gives you the feeling that the nature is guiding you, not the route. The route should be adding to the landscape. And the landscape shouldn't be dominated by the visual/sensory effect of the route, of course.



And that's precisely what RRF (Reiuld Ramstad Architekter) did for their project of the Trollstigen national tourist route in Norway. The route is adapted to the atmosphere and the temper of the nature it follows. The architecture can be read as a series of clear and precise transitions between natural landscape and planned places. The two meet, interact, but never fully mingle. And nature plays the most dominant role.

The Trollstigen national tourist route is currently under construction, and will be finished in 2010.