Skogfinsk Museum

IN THE FOREST

The forest is home, identity, and basis of life for the forest-finn culture. Their practice of Slash-and-burn agriculture meant a constant quest for new land, where the rye they carried with them together with what nature offered on the site, formed the basis of life for the forest-finns. This nomadic culture, however, only managed to survive through a permanent settlement and contact with the peasant community. Even though the nomadic way of life no longer defines their culture, the forest-fins still carry with them the forest as a basis for culture, unity and identity.

The forest has its own life, which the forest-finns both burn and chop, however, always with a great respect for the basis of life. The forest is both fertile ground and materials, both timber and firewood. In the forest-finn culture the woods are therefore omnipresent; in the shelter as timber walls, in the fireplace, in the taste of the rye, in the runes, in the faith, in the identity.

Svullrya is a village located in a low river, not a thorp, which would be a more natural place for the forest-finns to settle in. The open pine landscape does not provide adequate protection against the winter cold. But for the new museum, the forest is included as an abstraction, as place, identity and presence.

A field of wooden posts is created in a seemingly random pattern along the river, Finnskogvegen and towards Finnetunet. All the parts of the museum are organized in relation the these wooden posts, which also define walkways, perspectives and lighting. In this way, the museum’s individual parts – the Museum building, Finnetunet and Demonstrasjonstunet – all form part of a larger whole.

With a simple roof covering – a large roof – the Museum building is established over a densification in the wooden posts. The interior of the room is cut out within the wooden rows, so that the posts go from walls to ceilings and encapsulate the museum in an abstracted forest landscape.

At the same time, the roof structure plays on the fantastic and unique black and smoky roof of the traditional Finn-forest house, where the sharp contrast from air openings and the roof structure create a space that blurs the sense of height. The roof structure becomes a filter between the room and the roof, the facade, a veil between the building and the nature, as the gleam of the forest is defined by the transparent verticality of the tree trunk.

The large unifying roof is broken into a rhythm adapted to the functions of the house, the terrain and the openness towards the river.