About us

Sverre Fehn, born in Kongsberg in 1924, grew up in Tønsberg from the age of 12. After the war, during the reconstruction period, there was a great need for architects, and Fehn brought his awareness of the distinct character of different places into his architectural education. Fehn won the architectural competition announced by Alvdal Municipality when Huset Aukrust was to be built.

In his own description of the building, he took as his starting point the journey from his office in Oslo to the site where the building was to be constructed. ‘The road went through the forests of Østerdalen – with the morning light filtered between the pine trunks, the Glomma River gliding through the soft valley, the water forming clear mirror-like surfaces above the quiet sandbanks, and the dry-stone walls around the church graveyards. And so, by the end of the journey, he had found his materials: stones for the dry-stone walls, sand for the structural concrete elements and the polished concrete floor, and pine for all the woodwork. Spanning all of this is the glass, like a transparent skin.’ Huset Aukrust, which opened on 23 May 1996, is one of Sverre Fehn’s famous buildings. It is not uncommon for architecture students from faraway parts of the world to come and experience the building’s majestic expression and varied use of materials. When you arrive, you actually enter at the ‘back’ of the building – and inside Huset Aukrust it opens up into Kjell Aukrust’s entire world and sources of inspiration.

We recommend the book about the creation of Huset Aukrust, with texts by Lars Espen Aukrust, Harald Stanghelle and Øivind Storm Bjerke, ‘Huset Aukrust 25 år’, which is available in the museum shop for further information.