Arkitektur N wrote a lovely article about Cultural Center Stjørdal.
“This article was supposed to have placed Kimen within the story of the long row of cultural centres that have sprung up in small town centres all over Norway in recent years. But the story turned out to be a different one”, says Gaute Brochmann. Far from being a satellite of central cultural policy, this building is the final embodiment of half a century of local engagement, across political divides.
Brochmann has talked to some of the people central to the effort – local politicians and culture workers with a practical focus on local needs. The result is a huge complex, with recognisably general functions – concert hall, library, youth club, cinemas etc. – but singular in its inception and the process that has led to its realisation. The process involved consulting a long list of local interest groups. Not the conventional “user groups” of the people who were going to occupy the building, but local associations, clubs and societies, who all had hopes for what a new cultural centre might have to offer. As a result, the final structure has the backing of pretty much the whole local community.
