With this visitor centre near Kolding in Denmark, Cebra have set off the hilly moraine landscape with another – artificial – mound. It may be hard to believe, but at 113 m above sea level, the Skamlingsbanken, an ice-age terminal moraine about 10 km southeast of Kolding, is considered the highest rise in southern Denmark.
The mound, which is historically protected, is significant in terms of geography as well as history: in the 19th century it took on symbolic power in the Danish national movement, and the country’s current national anthem was composed at the folk festivals that have regularly taken place here.
The architects from the Cebra studio have topped the small hill with an even smaller, artificial one whose grass top conceals around 500 m² of usable space. Two arc-shaped cuts into the ground, which now feature glass façades, open the interior space onto the panorama of the landscape.
Carsten Primdahl, a partner with Cebra, describes the concept: “The visitor centre is an architectural interpretation of the glacial landscape. It is not a destination itself, but part of an overall narrative. The building is a portal – to the significant history and the local nature - and forms a natural starting point for hikes in the area, where a network of paths flows through both building and landscape.”
Inside the building, the architects have gone with a reduced material palette of exposed concrete, clay plaster, terrazzo and wood, all of which are intended to distract visitors as little as possible from the experience of the landscape.
Architecture: CEBRA
Client: Community of Kolding, Skamlingsbankeselskabet, Fonden til opretholdelse af Klokkestablen
Location: Skamlingvejen 125, 6093 Sjølund (DK)
Structural engineering, building services engineering: DRIAS, Dansk Energi Management
Landscape architecture: Opland
Exhibition design: YOKE
Contractor: Bo Michelsen
