JEVNAKER.- Kistefos Museum is welcoming visitors to a striking new visitor centre, designed by architecture firm Lundhagem. The building serves as an inviting gateway to the museum experience – and offers compelling reasons to linger.
Nestled in the forest beside the Randselva river near the southern car park, the centre marks the natural starting point for a journey through Kistefos' remarkable cultural landscape.
"Rather than being given a conventional building plot, we were asked to find the right place for this structure," explains Svein Lund, founding partner and architect at Lundhagem. The design challenge was to enhance visitor flow along the figure-eight pathway that winds through the park. The building itself now forms part of this route, creating a welcoming arrival point and a natural launching point for exploring further.
Drawing on Kistefos' heritage as a historic timber-floating facility, the design features dark timber columns that appear to hold the roof aloft like a floating sculpture. These structural beams rest at angles above sheltered walkways, beneath which the building houses a café, restrooms, a gift shop, and an information desk. All timber has been sourced from Kistefos' own forests, creating vertical lines that dialogue with the surrounding woodland.
While The Twist commands attention through a bold sculptural form, the visitor centre settles quietly into its natural setting. The team, architects Svein Lund, Patrik Larsson, Gunnar Markus Thomassen, Daniel Larsen, Kjersti Staveland, and Enya Aamo Aspen, alongside landscape architects from Atsite, ensured that nature plays an active role in the architecture. An atrium allows the forest, with its rock, water, and vegetation, to flow through the atrium with outdoor seating.
The café's furniture has been designed by Fredrik Sletner, winner of Kistefos' design competition. His TAPP series echoes the building's architectural language and is produced in partnership with Kistefos Møbler.
Run by Kunstpause (Art Break), the café offers a thoughtful break in an art-filled day, featuring locally sourced ingredients and regional producers. The menu celebrates game from Kistefos' own processing facility, elk bratwurst, elk steak, and elk cutlets headline the menu, with elk burger as this season's latest addition. Guests can also enjoy trout from Sirdal, cheese from Kjekshus Ysteri, and cured meats from acclaimed local makers across Hadeland. Each dish is paired with carefully chosen wines and alcohol-free options, including applejuice from Hemlaga and Ringvold Botaniske.
The restrooms is worth a visit: they're designed as an art installation themselves by the internationally acclaimed artist duo Skuja Braden. A bathroom visit at Kistefos is truly an art experience. The installation combines ceramic, glass, and mirror to striking effect, with the artwork Above the Below rising from a monumental sink in marble from Fauske at its centre. Sanctum of Flow, a series of thirteen ceramic works, adorns individual stalls. Visitors arriving at the centre are greeted by another artistic touch, a generative soundscape created by Cory Arcangel, where bell compositions shift throughout the day.
About the artworks:
SKUJA BRADEN – Above the Below / Sanctum of Flow (2026) Hand-crafted installation: ceramic and mixed materials (stoneware, porcelain, clay, glaze, glass) – variable dimensions
Skuja Braden is an artist duo celebrated for immersive, feminist ceramic installations that weave decorative tradition with personal and political commentary.
This site-specific work transforms the visitor centre's restrooms into an artistic space. Above the Below – a porcelain spray rising from a stoneware base atop a marble platform – crowns the sinks with a circular mirror. As visitors wash their hands, they become momentarily framed within the sculpture. Surrounding this centrepiece, Sanctum of Flow unfolds through thirteen oval works embedded in the stall walls. Crafted from clay, glaze, and glass, these pieces evoke bodily thresholds and architectural passages formed by pipes, ropes, zippers, and fluid shapes.
CORY ARCANGEL – X (2026) Communication tower: galvanized steel, bronze bells, APOLLO III bell control system, internet-connected bells, and custom software – 1200 x 110 x 110 cm
Cory Arcangel (b. 1978) explores internet culture and technological obsolescence through appropriation, hacking, and outmoded technology. X pairs a traditional carillon with a contemporary mobile tower, bridging analogue and digital communication.
Positioned at the centre's entrance, the work greets visitors with bell compositions that evolve throughout the day. The score isn't predetermined but generated algorithmically through custom software, creating an ever-shifting, unpredictable soundscape. Inside, a screen reveals this generative process in real time, allowing visitors to witness the system that creates the compositions.
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Kistefos was established in 1996 by the Norwegian businessman and art collector Christen Sveaas on the site of his grandfather’s former wood pulp mill. Today, Kistefos brings together art, architecture, and industrial heritage within an extensive sculpture park set in scenic natural surroundings. The institution presents annual exhibitions by leading national and international artists in its two galleries, The Twist and Nybruket Gallery. The award-winning building The Twist functions as a gallery, a bridge, and a sculptural landmark.
Kistefos continues to develop. A new visitor centre, designed by Lund Hagem Architects, will open in 2026 and include a café and museum shop. In 2031, a new museum building designed by Christ & Gantenbein is planned for completion. It will house both permanent and temporary exhibitions based on Christen Sveaas’ art collection.
