作者：弗蘭克·達菲

尼爾斯·托普的故事：他參與設計的建筑項目類型廣泛，他多才多藝，富有創(chuàng)造性，熱愛奧斯陸這座城市的歷史建筑并且對其有深刻的認識。在一個卓越的建筑時代背景下，他取得了輝煌的成就。他對建筑工藝和施工的相關方面具有高度的實踐熱情，對大海和祖國的風景懷有浪漫情懷。

但是，我個人的預測是：五十年后，當一切都成過眼云煙，一切都將塵埃落定，尼爾斯·托普將因其對建筑和城市化的卓著貢獻而被銘記。首先，他在單個建筑形態(tài)——辦公樓——的演變中所擔任的突出角色；其次，他對如何重塑城市以適應知識經(jīng)濟時代多層面、多樣化和不斷變化的需求的富有想象力的見解。

本文的目的在于探討尼爾斯·托普辦公樓設計方法的社會和政治先例，解釋為何他在辦公建筑設計項目方面的影響力已經(jīng)遠遠超出了他居住的斯堪的納維亞環(huán)境，并將他的辦公樓設計特別是室內(nèi)補充設計方面的想法與增強城市設計的魅力聯(lián)系起來，并展示尼爾斯·托普對辦公場所設計和城市設計兩方面的超強的結合，對21世紀最適宜的城市物理建筑的迫切創(chuàng)新任務是何等的及時和相關。

挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司（1986年）

首先讓我來說說最早我是如何認識尼爾斯·托普的。那是在1987年，《建筑師雜志》請我寫一篇關于尼爾斯·托普新完成的位于英國紐布利附近的挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司辦公大樓的評論文章。這是關于尼爾斯·托普的作品的最早的評論之一。這個相對低調(diào)的英國總部特殊項目（挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司位于英國紐布利的分公司）最初受到《建筑師雜志》的關注可能是因為他對坐落于起伏不平的公園環(huán)境中的18世紀優(yōu)雅紳士住宅的重要轉變。雖然顯而易見的是，尼爾斯·托普對這座最初由亨利·赫朗德設計具有重要歷史意義的房子做了精美的重新裝修。但我很快就清楚地意識到，該項目真正顯著的特點不是它對歷史遺跡的保護，而是他在老房子的一旁低調(diào)地增加了三個辦公樓的創(chuàng)新設計。起初我對三組對比感到驚訝：對赫朗德設計的住宅莊重正式性的研究和對三個新辦公樓不拘小節(jié)的研究；老房子內(nèi)的直接循環(huán)層次結構模式和辦公樓傾斜邊道進入模式；18世紀的嚴肅風格和20世紀適宜高科技辦公的斯堪的納維亞概念的溫暖家居風格。

作為英國人，我還有幾個令人驚訝的發(fā)現(xiàn)：一個是挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司高比率的可用空間——超過三分之一——分配給集體活動，如會議室、培訓室和其他不太正式的場所，為公司內(nèi)部的社交生活提供了空間。令人驚訝的還有尼爾斯·托普高度象征性地突出了集體用途，例如，把一部分老房子中最優(yōu)美和最莊嚴的房子用作此用途。此外親密的互動空間被大方地設置在三座辦公樓中每一層的中心區(qū)域，直接靠近每個被玻璃幕墻包圍的辦公室，這些辦公室根據(jù)各層的長度排列。顯然銷售復雜的電子產(chǎn)品被挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司視為一個集社交、知識、教育和商業(yè)于一體的活動。這需要寬敞的空間標準和富有想象力的設計，而且，也許更重要的是，社區(qū)感受的表達以及每個人對整個不同工作環(huán)境的自由進入。

挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司是斯堪的納維亞“綜合辦公室”理念在英國的第一個案例，一種融入了非常具體的社會和政治具體工作事項的新型辦公規(guī)劃形式，這與在英語國家的大多數(shù)辦公室設計相當不同。尼爾斯·托普那時作為一名挪威建筑師在英國和美國幾乎完全不為人所知，但卻是他將這一概念引進到盎格魯 - 撒克遜辦公建筑的神秘世界中來。

尼爾斯·托普如何發(fā)展辦公場所作為城市的理念

正是在不斷實踐和一貫具有民主傾向的斯堪的納維亞地區(qū)，而非德國，首次出現(xiàn)了完全開放和完全隔離二者的辦公樓折衷解決方案。該綜合辦公的廣泛影響在今天變得越來越明顯，因為工作的日益虛擬化和移動化——知識工作的新地理位置和時間表特征——正在從根本上轉變用戶對不同辦公布局類型的需求。

三個極其重要的因素：第一，規(guī)模的巨大變化；第二，信息技術效應削弱了上班族和他們各自工作場所之間的聯(lián)系；第三，更加精明、要求更高和快速變化的客戶的影響。這些因素結合起來說明了尼爾斯·托普對辦公場所思考的發(fā)展模式：從紐布利的文明而低調(diào)的挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司辦公樓項目（1986年完工）到斯德哥爾摩附近弗洛桑戴維的SAS總部大樓（1989年完工），從希思羅附近哈蒙斯沃斯的英國航空公司總部大樓（1998年完工）到他最新的作品之一——奧斯陸的挪威商學院（2008年完工）。

在弗洛桑戴維的SAS總部大樓，尼爾斯·托普的偉大貢獻是創(chuàng)造了一個規(guī)模非常大的布景內(nèi)飾建筑布局。我說布景不只是空間規(guī)模大，而且與整個建筑設計相得益彰，顯得充滿活力。非常重要的是，尼爾斯·托普也在阿克爾碼頭（他的家鄉(xiāng)奧斯陸的一個全新場所）的設計上超越了城市設計的傳統(tǒng)，通過采用更大規(guī)模、同樣壯觀的想象以及相同的適應滲透性、移動性和流動性原則。他正是在信息技術開始明朗的時候實現(xiàn)了這一辦公設計的突破，信息技術以其強大性和普遍性，不但會使個人辦公場所變得老套乏味，也會讓辦公樓本身變得荒廢。

在哈蒙斯沃斯的英航總部大樓的設計中，尼爾斯·托普將辦公室內(nèi)的布景視覺效果復制為城市至關重要的一部分，但對于一個已經(jīng)打算借用信息技術來鼓勵更加移動化的工作方式和強化空間使用的激進公司組織，這有著額外的優(yōu)勢，因此對個人獨有辦公室的完全放棄，是英航?jīng)Q心使用其新辦公樓作為驅動業(yè)務和文化變革的標志。

在奧斯陸B(tài)I挪威商學院的設計中，大的突破是工作場所作為城市縮影的愿景的進一步發(fā)展，要找到工作、學習、社交之間的界限已經(jīng)成為不可能。辦公室已經(jīng)變成城市，而城市已經(jīng)變成辦公室。

斯德哥爾摩弗洛桑戴維的SAS總部大樓（1989年）

挪威數(shù)據(jù)公司辦公樓設立一個場景，也無疑是尼爾斯·托普的建筑杰作——斯德哥爾摩的SAS總部大樓的原型。1989年3月，我有幸為《建筑評論》寫一篇關于這座大樓的評論。

斯德哥爾摩的SAS總部大樓完全不同和具有更加優(yōu)越工作環(huán)境的是它沒有像街邊建筑那么多的中庭。這個世界到處是死氣沉沉的中庭：呆板、痙攣的脖子和死氣沉沉的意味涌上心頭。尼爾斯·托普在SAS總部大樓的創(chuàng)新輝煌是確保SAS的中庭和它的使用者都看起來好像他們要實現(xiàn)——當然是他們真正至少在內(nèi)部復制一個非常令人滿意的完整的都市體驗。這條街足夠長，而且有足夠的目的地和活動連接到五個單獨辦公空間。更重要的是，通過將街道與目的地（包括咖啡廳、會議室和培訓室、商店）成一條直線，托普以他天才般的建筑布景，確保它始終是充滿活力的。

整個SAS大樓由一個很有特色的管理日程來驅動、激勵和推動。辦公樓各樓層個人辦公空間和共享群體空間之間的關系，是各主要部門和街道關系的縮影。不言而喻，這屬于每個人和整個組織。在每一個組織層面——個人工作場所、小團體、部門和總部作為一個整體——每個部分都最為微妙和靈活地在加強組織連接的總體專欄內(nèi)得以說明。

在SAS總裁卡爾森所表達的目標中，弗洛桑戴維的SAS總部大樓設計為一個管理工具而非僅僅是一座大樓，他把這個大樓稱為：“作為行政的主要任務……是為前端提供服務，并發(fā)展和制定愿景、戰(zhàn)略和目標。我們想把這一切放進這座建筑中”。再者，“創(chuàng)意開發(fā)不會在一個人獨坐在辦公桌前的時候發(fā)生的。創(chuàng)意開發(fā)來源于兩個人相遇，開始交談，交流思想和經(jīng)驗的時候。新的想法涌現(xiàn)出來即是一切的開端“。

英國航空公司，哈蒙斯沃斯(1994年)

SAS總部大樓竣工五年后，英國航空公司的新總部大樓復制了許多前輩的特點。然而，綜合辦公室的理念已經(jīng)因為支持工作場所之間更大的流動性和可互換性取消。英國航空公司那時正經(jīng)歷管理變革，這對作為建筑師的尼爾斯·托普具有吸引力，因為他被評定為具有不只是創(chuàng)造一個辦公樓的能力，而且能支持并加速文化和組織變革的迫切需要的計劃。如SAS總部大樓一樣，英國航空公司總部的規(guī)劃和局部也被賦予了加強內(nèi)部溝通的許多功能。

這兩座大樓的內(nèi)飾顯然來源于尼爾斯·托普對城市形態(tài)的終生興趣和迷戀。然而，具有諷刺意味的是，這兩座大樓都孤立地建在郊區(qū)的公共用地上。

然而，英航作為一個客戶能夠進一步發(fā)展SAS總部大樓的模型，在這個過程中有兩個非常重要的情況。首先是英航投入該項目的大量管理精力。航空一直是一個國有化的行業(yè)，甚至在人們的記憶中是一個半軍事組織，最近私有化的英航利用項目時間表所提供的每一次機會，一步一步地向世人展示這家航空公司決心成為世界最先進的，客戶友好的和服務響應最快的機構。第二個進程方面的優(yōu)勢是因為信息技術的迅速進步而成為可能。喬遷之時，2500名英航員工搬進了大樓的工作場所。如今，增加流動員工數(shù)量已上升到超過4000人。這個簡單統(tǒng)計的有力證據(jù)就是人與人的關系、他們的時間表、他們的位置和他們的工作場所之間的關系如何迅速變化。

阿克爾碼頭：城市形式作為布景

到八十年代后期，尼爾斯·托普不僅是國際上具有特殊天賦的著名建筑師，創(chuàng)造了如SAS總部大樓和英國航空公司總部大樓的建筑物。它們不僅是強大的商業(yè)工具，在建筑上也具有重大意義。兩棟大樓都具有神奇的，準城市化的內(nèi)飾品質(zhì)。毫不奇怪，尼爾斯·托普以其優(yōu)秀的布景技巧在奧斯陸證明他振興城市設計的能力。

今天重讀我在1990年7月發(fā)表在《建筑評論》上的對尼爾斯·托普的著名城市設計項目（奧斯陸阿克爾碼頭）的評論，讓我感觸頗深的是我不能在英國的城市項目中獲得相同的流動性、親密感和綜合運用的證據(jù)。

阿克爾碼頭及其隨后的向西擴建是如此有趣。有趣和巧妙的并非完全是建筑，而是使用的布景法組合，給阿克爾碼頭一種強烈的地方意識，特別是在間質(zhì)性空間中建筑內(nèi)和建筑之間?！皡⒂^阿克爾碼頭的最佳時機”——我在第一次參觀后為《建筑評論》寫的另一篇文章——“是在早春或秋季黃昏時。最佳觀賞點在內(nèi)部，從辦公室走廊到中庭或從一個公寓，向下看并且向對面看，從綜合大樓的一部分到另一部分。辦公室的燈熄滅，公寓燈光亮起來的時候，你之所見全是最讓人興奮的透明——一層一層的空間，有些亮著，有些是漆黑的，一層疊一層；一個有人的辦公室，看看有人在準備晚飯的廚房，購物人群在喝咖啡和聽鋼琴曲的一樓中庭”。

尼爾斯·托普的辦公樓室內(nèi)設計和城市設計之間的共同因素是他對建筑、街道和場所布景方面的思考能力。將它們設計為場景，作為精心策劃的壯觀活動的基本背景。就像一個戲劇或電影制片人，尼爾斯·托普已經(jīng)能夠找到在物質(zhì)上使得SAS總部大樓和英國航空公司總部大樓的內(nèi)街，以及阿克爾碼頭的間質(zhì)和重疊空間變得栩栩如生，既具有吸引力，也有多種多樣的功能，充滿魅力，引人入勝。

就這個觀點而言，是什么幫助了尼爾斯·托普？ 毫無疑問，他既是富有想象力的城市設計師和精美絕倫的內(nèi)飾創(chuàng)造者，兩個至關重要的經(jīng)歷成就了他：首先是他在羅馬的經(jīng)歷，十幾歲時，他的建筑師父親讓他在羅馬與一個意大利家庭生活了半年，那時他接觸了意大利非?？磕铣鞘械慕值篮蛷V場的建筑和多姿多彩的生活；其次，他是一個建筑學生，但對表演和戲劇具有很大的熱情，恰巧，這兩者的聯(lián)系頗有淵源：scenography，畢竟有兩個本意，一個是建筑的再現(xiàn)，另一個是風景繪畫，尼爾斯·托普的手法是二者的巧妙結合。

BI 挪威商學院作為一個藝術作品

奧斯陸尼達倫新商學院校園是尼爾斯·托普的設計項目中最清晰地體現(xiàn)建筑和戲劇之間聯(lián)系的一個項目。這所學?！厣狭鶎拥叵氯龑印剂苏粋€街區(qū)，兩條有頂部照明的玻璃內(nèi)街從頂部到底部將街區(qū)一分為二，而兩條街道在街區(qū)中心的右角匯合。兩條較小的街道與更重要的大街平行。這些內(nèi)街連接的三維空間讓人驚訝：從街區(qū)任何層次的任何地方都可以看到整個商學院的所有活動——本科生，研究生和管理人員培訓等教學活動、禮堂、圖書館，研討會和小組討論，個人和小組工作?？臻g同時具備多種功能：餐飲、交談、休息，但最重要的是學生、員工和游客之間的正式和非正式的見面和交流。電梯和開放式樓梯（主要的螺旋樓梯能容納三個人并排行走）實現(xiàn)的水平和垂直（尤其是垂直）流動是尼爾斯·托普作品的一貫風格，瞬間可以理解。進出是分層的，因此可以選擇進入或者退出。聲音的環(huán)境充滿活力和刺激，是令人激動的社交環(huán)境。布景規(guī)模非常大：每一個平面、立面和剖面的建筑變化、每一個細節(jié)和大小都告訴人們：“這就是學習的地方，這就是要參觀的地方，這就是要去的地方。”

改造城市

尼爾斯·托普已經(jīng)展示了辦公樓和公共機構建筑的室內(nèi)設計，如SAS，BA和BI，都可以設計成支持偶然的企業(yè)和教育文化的創(chuàng)建。他曾在阿克爾碼頭項目中展示了如何綜合，事實是不斷的綜合，甚至在城市范圍內(nèi)，更加綜合的功能是可以相互補充的。整合這些舉措是一個重任，但尼爾斯·托普已經(jīng)證明了想象力和天賦可以使辦公樓和商學院從整體上看作是充滿活力的體驗。還有哪位建筑師具有更好的知識展示工作和學習的新方法的創(chuàng)新如何用布景方式結合起來以振興建筑本身還有整個城市區(qū)域？

Many stories could be told about Niels Torp: the versatility and inventiveness he has displayed over a very wide range of projects, his deep knowledge and love of the historical fabric of the City of Oslo, his own achievements within the context of a distinguished architectural dynasty, his highly practical passion for all matters to do with craft and construction, his romantic fondness for the sea and the landscape of his native country.

However, my personal prediction is that in fifty years time, when all is said and done and everything will have settled into place, Niels Torp will be best remembered for two very specific and very important contributions to architecture and urbanism: first, his outstanding role in the evolution of a single building type — the office — and, second, his imaginative insights into how cities will have to be reshaped to accommodate the multifaceted, varied and ever-changing requirements of the knowledge economy.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the social and political antecedents of Niels Torp's approach to office design; to explain why his office design projects have become highly influential well beyond his immediate Scandinavian environment, to relate how his ideas about the design of offices and particularly their interiors complement and reinforce his fascination with urban design, and to demonstrate how the uniquely powerful combination of Niels Torp's propositions on both workplace and urban design is particularly timely and relevant to the urgent task of inventing the most appropriate physical fabric for the cities of the twenty-first century.

NORSK DATA (1986)

First let me explain how I first came across Niels Torp. It was in 1987. I had been asked to write a review for the Architect's Journal of his newly completed Norsk Data offices near Newbury in England. This was the first of several such reviews of Niels Torp's work. What had probably initially attracted the Architect's journal's attention to this particular project, the relatively modest British headquarters near Newbury of a Norwegian IT company, was that it included a major conversion of a fine eighteenth century gentleman's residence set in rolling parkland. While it was immediately obvious that this historically important house, originally designed by Henry Holland, had been beautifully refurnished by Niels Torp,it soon became clear to me that the really significant feature of the project was not its conservationist dimension, but rather his innovative design of the three new office pavilions that had been added unobtrusively at one side of the old house. Initially I was struck by three contrasts: between the studied formality of Holland's mansion and the equally studied informality of the cluster of three new office building; between the direct and hierarchical pattern of circulation within the old house and the oblique,sideways path that led to the offices and, thirdly, between the austere of the eighteenth century and the warm domesticity of the twentieth century Scandinavian notion of what was appropriate for hi-tech workplace.

Several other surprises met my British eyes: one was Norsk Data's allocation of a very high proportion of the available space — over one third — to collective activities such as meeting and training rooms and other less formal spaces that accommodated the social life of the company. Also surprising was the high degree of symbolic prominence Niels Torp had given to these collective uses, for example, by locating some of them in the finest and stateliest rooms of the old house. Moreover intimate interaction spaces had been generously located within the centre of each of the floors within the three office pavilions, immediately adjacent to the enclosed, glass-fronted,individual offices that lined the perimeters of these floors. Selling complex electronic products was obviously seen by Norsk Data as a social, intellectual,educational and commercial activity demanding generous space standards and imaginative design but also, and perhaps more significantly, the expression of a senses of community combined with free access by everyone to a whole range of different work settings.

Norsk Data was the first example in the UK of the Scandinavian idea of the"combi-office" — a novel form of office planning loaded with a very specific social and political agenda very different from the values expressed in most office design in the English-speaking world. It was Niels Torp, a Norwegian architect, then almost totally unknown in the UK and USA, who was responsible for introducing the concept into the hermetic world of the Anglo-Saxon office.

HOW NIELS TORP DEVELOPED THE IDEA OF THE OFFICE AS THE CITY

It was in ever-practical and always democratically incline Scandinavia, rather than in Germany, that a generic, compromise solution between totally open and totally cellular offices first emerged. The wider implications of the combi-office are only becoming fully apparent today, as increasingly virtual and mobile ways of working — symptomatic of the new geographies and chronologies of knowledge work — are radically shifting the balance of user demand for different types of office layout.

Three critically important factors are at work: first, a massive change of scale;second, the effect of information technology in dissolving the link between office workers and their individual workplaces; and, third, the influence of more sophisticated, demanding and rapidly changing clients. These factors taken together explain the pattern of the development of Niels Torp's thinking about the design of the working environment from the civilised but modest Norsk Data project in Newbury (completed in 1986) to the SAS headquarters at Fr?sundavik, near Stockholm (completed in 1989), to the British Airways headquarters at Harmondsworth near Heathrow (completed in 1998) and to one of his latest works, the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo (completed 2008).

At SAS Fr?sundavik, Niels Torp's great contribution was creating scenographic interior architecture on a very large scale. By scenographic I mean not just space that is big in scale, but space that is choreographed and alive. It is sure significant that simultaneously Niels Torp was transcending conventions in urban design at Aker Brygge, a whole new quarter of Oslo, his native city, by deploying on an even larger scale the same theatrical imagination and the same principles of accommodating permeability, mobility and fluidity. It is significant that he generated this breakthrough in office design at precisely the same moment as it began to be clear that information technology, with all its power and ubiquity, has the potential to make not just individual office workplaces obsolete but also office buildings themselves.

At BA Harmondsworth, Niels Torp replicated his scenographic vision of the office interior as a vital urban quarter, but had the additional advantage of coming to terms with a radical organisation that was already intent on taking advantage of information technology to encourage more mobile ways of working as well as intensifying space use — hence the complete abandonment of the individually owned office room, a sign of BA's commitment to using its new building as the engine for driving business and cultural change.

At BI, the Norwegian Business School in Oslo, the big breakthrough is that,in the further development of the vision of the workplace as a microcosm of the city, it has become impossible to trace the boundaries between working,learning, socialising and studying. The office has become the city and the city has become the office.

SAS FR?SUNDAVIK, STOCKHOLM (1989)

Norsk Data set the scene and was the prototype for what is undoubtedly Niels Torp's architectural masterpiece, the SAS headquarters in Stockholm— which in March 1989 I was lucky enough to be asked by the Architectural Review to criticise.

What makes SAS in Stockholm a completely different and superior working environment, is that it is not so much an atrium building as a street building.The world is full of dead atria: connotations of dullness, cricked necks and lifelessness spring to mind. Niels Torp's brilliant innovation at SAS was to ensure that the SAS atrium and its occupants both look as if they are going somewhere — which, of course, they really are, replicating internally at least,a really satisfying and complete urban experience. The street is long enough and sufficiently full of destinations and events to link the five separate office pavilions. More importantly, by lining the street with destinations — cafes,meeting and training rooms, shops — Torp, with his genius for architectural scenography, has made sure that it is always animated.

The entire SAS building is driven, energised and animated by a distinctive managerial agenda. The relationship on each floor of each pavilion between individual office rooms and the shared group spaces is a microcosm of the relationship between each major department and the street, which self-evidently belongs to everyone, to the whole organisation. At each organisational level — the individual workplace, the small group, the department and headquarters as a whole — each component has been given,with great subtlety and flexibility, within the overall rubric of enhancing organisational connectivity.

That SAS Fr?sundavik was conceived not so much as a building as a managerial instrument is well documented in the objectives expressed by Jan Carlzon, the Chief Executive of SAS, who called the building into being: "Themain task for the administration ....is to provide service for the front line, and to develop and formulate visions, strategies and goals. We wanted to put all this into the architecture." And again, "Creative development doesn't happen when a person is sitting alone at his or her desk. Creative development occurs when two people meet, begin to converse and exchange thought and experiences. That's when new ideas emerge. When things start to happen".

BRITISH AIRWAYS, HARMONDSWORTH (1994)

Completed five years after SAS, BA's new headquarters replicates many of the features of its predecessor. However, the concept of the combi-office has been dropped in favour of greater mobility and interchangeability between workplaces. BA was undergoing its own managerial revolution at the time and was attracted to Niels Torp as architect because he was judged to have the capacity to create not just another office building but a total environment capable of supporting and accelerating an urgently needed programme of cultural and organisational change. Like SAS the plans and sections of the BA headquarters are endowed with many features intended to enhance internal communication.

The interiors of both buildings are obviously derived from Niels Torp's lifelong interest in and fascination with urban forms, and yet, ironically enough, both buildings stand isolated on suburban parkland sites.

However, in two very important matters of process, BA as a client was able to take the SAS model further. The first is the enormous amount of managerial energy that BA put into its project. Having been a nationalised industry and even, within living memory, a semi-military organisation, the recently privatised BA used every opportunity that the project timetable offered, step by step, to demonstrate that the airline was determined to become one of the most sophisticated, user-friendly and responsive service organisations in the world. The second advance in terms of process at BA has been made possible by rapid advances in information technology. At move-in, 2500 BA staff occupied workplaces in the building. Today's increasing mobile population has risen to over 4000. This simple statistic is eloquent evidence of how rapidly the relationship between people, their timetables, their whereabouts and their workplaces is changing.

AKER BRYGGE: URBAN FORM AS SCENOGRAPHY

By the late eighties Niels Torp was not only famous internationally as an architect with a very special talent for creating buildings such as SAS and BA that were not only powerful business tools but also architecturally highly significant. Both buildings share a magical, quasi urban, interior quality. It should have been no surprise that Niels Torp had already used his considerable scenographic skills in Oslo to demonstrate that he was also capable of revitalising urban design.

What strikes me today on rereading my commentary in the July 1990 issue of Architectural Review on Niels Torp's famous urban design project, Aker Brygge, located on the waterfront in Oslo, is evidence of my frustration at not being able to achieve the same fluidity, intimate scale and mix of uses in urban projects in the UK.

Aker Brygge and its subsequent extension to the west are so interesting. It was not so much their architecture, interesting and skilful as it is, but the scenographic mix of uses that gives Aker Brygge such a strong sense of place,especially within and between buildings in the interstitial spaces. "The best time to see Aker Brygge", I wrote in another piece for the Architectural Review after my first visit, "is at dusk in early spring or autumn. The best vantage points is from within, from one of the office galleries onto the atrium or from one of the apartments, looking downwards and across from one part of the complex to another. As the lights of the offices go off and the apartment lights come on, what you see is transparency of the most exciting kind —layer after layer of space, some lit, some dark, and layer on layer of use: an occupied office, a glimpse into the kitchen of an apartment where someone is preparing supper, a crowd of shoppers having coffee and listening to a pianist on the floor of the atrium."

The common factor between Niels Torp's office building interiors and urban design is his capacity to think of buildings, streets and places in scenographic terms. They are conceived as stage sets, the essential background to carefully planned theatrical events. This is a very special and unfortunately very unusual kind of imaginative skill. Like a theatre or film producer, Niels Torp has been able to find ways of physically conjuring up the mix of attractions and activities that makes the internal streets in SAS and BA and the interstitial and overlapping spaces in Aker Brygge vivid, attractive and entrancing.

What could have helped Niels Torp to this point of view? Two crucial experiences may have helped to make him, as he undoubtedly is, equally effective as an imaginative urban designer and as the creator of fabulous interiors: first his experience in Rome, where his architect father despatched him as a teenager to live with an Italian family for half a year to draw the architecture and experience the colourful life of the streets and piazzas of that very non-northern city; the second, his passion, as an architectural student,for acting and the theatre. Incidentally, there is an ancient connection between the two: scenography, after all, originally had two meanings: one as architectural representation and the other as the painting of scenery. Niels Torp's modus operandi neatly combines both.

BI, THE NORWEGIAN BUSINESS SCHOOL AS A WORK OF ART

In no projects is this connection between Niels Torp's architecture and the theatre clearer than in the new business school in Oslo, the Nydalen Campus.The school — six storeys above ground and three below — occupies an entire city block, which is bisected from top to bottom in both dimensions by two major, glazed, top-lit, internal streets, which meet at right angles in the centre of the block. Two minor streets run parallel to the more important of these major streets. The three dimensional spatial impact of the conjunction of these internal streets is amazing: from practically anywhere at any level within the block all the activities of the entire business school — undergraduate,graduate and executive education, auditoria, libraries, seminars and discussion groups, individual and group work — are visible. Multiple opportunities exist for eating, drinking, talking, relaxing, but, above all, for meetings and interactions, formal and informal, between students, staff and visitors.Horizontal and especially vertical circulation, by lifts and open stairs — one major spiral stair is generous enough to accommodate three people abreast— are, as always in Niels Torp's work, instantly comprehensible. Accessibility and permeability are layered so there is always choice to engage or withdraw.The acoustic environment is vibrant and stimulating, the social environment electric. This is scenography on a very large scale: every architectural move in plan, elevation and section, every detail, large and small, says: "This is the place to study; this is the place to be seen; this is the place to be."

REINVENTING THE CITY

Niels Torp has shown the interiors of office and institutional buildings such as SAS, BA, and BI can be devised to support the creation of serendipitous corporate and educational cultures. He has shown at Aker Brygge how mixed and, indeed, mixing and ever more mixable uses can be made to complement each other at the urban scale. The task of integrating these initiatives is huge, but Niels Torp has demonstrated what a high degree of imagination and talent can make of the office and the business school when they are conceived holistically as dynamic experiences. Which architect anywhere is better equipped to demonstrate how innovation in new ways of working and learning can be combined scenographically to revitalise not just architecture but entire city quarters?