Nissen Richards Studio was commissioned by Kode in Norway to re-imagine and remodel the Museum’s visitor experience in its 1887 main building. The practice had previously worked for Kode, as a joint client with MUNCH, on the ‘Playing Pieces’ temporary exhibition.

Kode, one of the Nordic region’s largest museums for art, crafts, design, and music, is made up of four individual buildings, all located in central Bergen – as well as three composer’s homes Troldhaugen, Siljustøl and Lysøen, outside the city centre. 

The architectural commission pertained only to building one, the largest of the four central buildings, rethinking the entrance sequence and atria at the front, as well the building’s rear overhanging extension and courtyard below, blocking out views of a bank built directly to its rear. The brief also asked for a new café area, in addition to an existing restaurant, plus new classroom and archive spaces.

The project required great sensitivity to the existing historic fabric of the building and entailed detailed historical research to investigate original visions and also the blueprints of alternatives conceived of at the outset.

One of the most major existing issues to resolve was that two external stairs leading to the first floor, serving as the original entrance route, had been compromised by the addition of a ground floor entrance for wheelchair access. This was addressed by a radical suggestion to remove the external, single-storey stair and create a new ground floor main entrance to enable access for all, whilst also removing a central ceiling / floor above the internal entrance area to create a full height stairwell atrium, linking with the existing upper-floor double height stairwell.  This move would radically change the external fascia, allowing for a dramatic, lit front elevation.

An internal stairway was extended to run throughout the building, including a new courtyard spiral stair to connect the new archive space to the courtyard. The new café was proposed for the courtyard area, along with a shop space, previously located elsewhere in the main building.

The concept for the remodelling also included a new, semi-transparent screen to screen off the bank to the rear.

The mezzanine extrusion was also remodelled with the addition of a new root terrace, allowing the space below to be used as an enclosed exhibition space. An external sculpture garden was also proposed.