The New Holmenkollen Beacon

The New Holmenkollen Beacon
Extending tradition

145 years ago the first Norwegian took off from a hill, catapulting himself to the sky, creating a sport that would spread all over the world and captivate millions.
Today Oslo remains the undisputed capital of ski jumping, having had annual competitions at Holmenkollen since 1892, served the Olympics in 1952 and several world championships.
As the city will host the 2011 world championships it requires a rebuilding be­yond what the existing structure can manage.
The Holmenkollen site has been the cradle of evolution in ski jumping and the facility was revisited and improved over 20 times.

The New Holmenkollen Beacon is a project that won the international competition to redesign the ski jump of Oslo for the 2011 world championships. It is a new 50,000 seat amphitheatre and Olympic-standard ski jump overlooking Oslo, which will invigorate the capital with a new icon.

Holmenkollen has the power to change the fate of Oslo. When we look at the Olympian models of Barcelona, Sydney and Munich, great architecture was at the forefront to redefining how the city was perceived. The Holmenkollen ski jump could liberate Oslo from regional constraint and give it the same city status as Sydney, Paris or Barcelona. It would invigorate the capital with a national icon in the line of evolution initiated by the new opera and reinforce the city’s wave of regeneration, giving it a recognised international status and the real flair of a World Championship city!

The cost of the project has been bouncing up and down and nobody seems to know where the real costs lie today. This project is a smaller part of a bigger set of facilities, and has never been critically outside its financial frame. The competition reports states for the Nye Holmenkollen Fyr that “The building construction specialists view the construction as both cost effective and sensible in relation to the possibilities for prefabrication and fast progress in the construction period.”
In order to achieve such a landmark on time and budget all instances should work together. There are decisions taken without the participation of all the required experts at meetings behind closed doors. Instead of debating the economic feasibility of the project we, friends of Holmenkollen, would like to ask the world to give its opinion as of whether the project should become reality. We believe this project requires the public opinion beyond national boundaries.

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