The Norwegian Roads Administration supports the Routes project

The Routes project is happy to announce that The Norwegian Public Roads Administration has decided to grant additional financial support to one of the project’s senior researchers: Beate Elvebakk from the Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics. The support, extending over three years, will enable Elvebakk to expand her focus on landscape practices in urban areas. The aim of this study is to improve the Roads Administration’s theoretical and empirical  competence on their own and others’ aesthetic thinking relative to roads and landscapes. The Routes project team is grateful for the support, which strengthens the already active collaboration between the Routes project and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.

Affiliated researcher to the Routes project

The cultural historian Kristina Skåden has become an affiliated researcher to the Routes project. Skåden is a PhD stipendiat at the University of Oslo, Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), working on the dissertation Production of Landscape: Norwegian-German relations in the automobile- and road sectors 1933-1940.  Skåden will take active part in the Routes projects’ seminars and events, and her research greatly strengthen the project’s inquiries into 20th century car culture. In the spring 2010, Skåden is a guest researcher at the Technische Universität in Berlin.

The Routes Conference

Click on image for details on the conference

On the 24th and 25th September 2009, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, in collaboration with the University of Oslo and Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics, invited scholars and students to an international conference on routes, roads, and landscapes. The conference investigated the ways in which various kinds of routes have shaped modern conceptions of the landscape, and inquired into the role of the route itself, both as an aesthetic object and as a setting for aesthetic practices.

Outstanding international scholars from many fields were invited as key note speakers, and an open call for papers had attracted a large number of abstracts for the open sessions. The conference gathered all together 21 speakers from 9 different countries, representing a wide range of disciplines. The artists Ingrid Book and Carina Hedén presented an exhibition of recent landscape and road photography with the title Produserte landskap, made specially for the Routes conference. With an audience of more than one hundred people, the Routes-conference provided two stimulating days of lectures and discussion. Click here for details.

Routes paper at the conference ‘Technik und die Wiederkehr der Natur’

18th and 19th June 2009, the Routes project’s guest scholar Lars Frers participated in the conference ‘Technik und Wiederkehr der Natur - zur Ästhetik der Schöpferischen Zerstöring’ with the paper “Erschöpfung und Erosion. Eine Phenomenologie der Handlungsmacht des Natürlichen”. The conference was organised by Sektion Technik- und Wissenschaftsforschung and Sektion Umweltsoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS) at the Helmholz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung in Leipzig.

Routes seminar at the Norwegian Road Museum

Seven Routes scholars presented their projects at a one day research seminar titled ‘Veien, reisen og landskapet’ at the Norwegian road museum, Friday 5th of June. The seminar was the first in a series of collaborative events between the Road Museum and the Routes project. The seminar was followed by an excursion to historical roads and routes in the Øyer area, led by the Road Museum’s director Geir Paulsrud.

Routes paper at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference

Lars Frers presented his paper “Landscape, the body, and the route. The sociomateriality of road stops between materiality and fatigue” at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Cardiff, 16-18 April 2009. He spoke in a panel devoted to ‘Space, Mobility and Place’.

Two Routes papers at the Society of Architectural Historians’ Annual Meeting

Janike Kampevold Larsen and Mari Hvattum presented Routes-related papers at the 2009 annual meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians in Pasadena, 1-5 April 2009. Larsen spoke in a session devoted to ‘The Architecture of the Road: Space, Commerce, and Mobilization’, and the title of her paper was ’Installing Landscape: Norway’s Tourist Routes’. Mari Hvattum spoke of ‘Panoramas of Style: Railway architecture in 19th century Norway’ in the session ‘Travel as Architectural Epistemology’.

Two PhD candidates in place!

Two PhD candidates have been appointed to the Routes project. From all together eleven highly qualified applicants, the two adjudicating commitees at UiO and AHO respectively, selected Torild Gjesvik and Even Smith Wergeland. Gjesvik will be situated at IKOS/University of Oslo, working on the relationship between landscape painting and road planning in 19th century Norway. She is an art historian from the University of Bergen, and has extensive experience as a curator and writer on modern art. Even Smith Wergeland will be situated at AHO, studying the role of the motorway in post war architectural discourse and practice. Wergeland is an art historian from the University of Bergen, specialized in 20th century architectural and urban history.

’scape magazine

“The road to nature”. Janike Kampevold Larsen has published an article on some of the sea side tourist route installations in Norway in the latest issue of ’scape magazine, nr. 2/ 2008.

Paisajes culturales: herencia y concervación

Four Routes scholars gave papers at the international conference of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment, EASLCE, which took place at the University of Henares, Alcalá de Henares, Spain, in October 2008. 

Brita Brenna: Norwegian 18th Century Landscapes of Power and Science

Mari Hvattum: Architecture and the Mimesis of Place

Beate Elvebakk: Road Aesthetics as Practice and Discourse in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration

Janike Kampevold Larsen: Nature on Display: Matter and Nature as Sculptural Presence in Literature