The new visitor center at Kistefos creates a new, cohesive entrance to the sculpture park and strengthens the interplay between art, architecture, industrial heritage, and nature.

The building is nestled into the forest between the Randselva River and the parking area at the museum’s southern entrance, forming a natural starting point for a walk through the landscape. The structure has been carefully adapted to the site, with all existing vegetation preserved. The visitor center is organized around two atriums, one dedicated to operations and the other to visitors. The public atrium includes an outdoor seating area where visitors are invited to take a break amid the new building and the existing trees, rocky outcrops, vegetation, and water.

The building houses public amenities including a museum shop with ticket sales, restrooms and cloakrooms, as well as a café overlooking the Randselva River and the surrounding forest.

Where one would normally be given a site on which to build, we were instead tasked with identifying a suitable location for the building. It was intended to improve circulation and create a hub within the network of paths running through the park from north to south. At the same time, the location takes into account plans for a new 8,000m² museum building that will share functions with the visitor center.

A new route now passes through the building as part of the visitor journey. The center serves as a welcoming point upon arrival and as a starting point for exploring the park, or as a place to pause along the way.

Its architectural expression is rooted in the site’s history of timber floating. Dark tar-treated, slanted timber columns form both the building’s structural framework and its defining motif, inspired by logs floating in the river and by the trees in the surrounding landscape. The timber was sourced from Kistefos’s own forests.