Factory

On behalf of shipowner Holmøy Maritime, Snøhetta has designed Holmen Industrial Area, a highly sophisticated and colorful 6,000 square meter fishing facility situated on the eastern side of Sortlandssundet in the archipelago of Vesterålen in Northern Norway. By assembling all employees and top-notch facilities on the same site, this bold new facility ensures the regions continued international success within Norway’s second largest industry – an industry worth over one billion dollars annually.

This article was originally published on March 28, 2015. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

The Fagus Factory is one of the earliest built works of modern architecture, and the first project of Walter Gropius. The commission provided Gropius with the opportunity to put his revolutionary ideas into practice, and the stunning rectilinear volume with its primarily glazed façade would guide the course of Modernism through the coming decades.