House of Grain
House of Grain
House of Grain
At the House of Grain, or Kornets Hus, the celebration of Danish farming tradition and food culture becomes an almost spiritual experience. Replacing an existing farm and bakery on the same site, the new 600-square-metre project, designed by Norwegian firm Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter, is sure to solidify Hjørring as a must-see town. With an on-site bakery, boutique and café, this community hub, public amenity and education centre celebrates the importance of grain in human civilization.
Inspired by their client, who owns the adjacent grain farm and mill and is a fierce advocate for bio-logical farming (read: no pesticides), the architects sought to honour age-old vernacular in their design and eschew the industrial architecture of most modern food production facilities. They turned to the area’s “rich landscape, folk culture and agricultural heritage” to inform their design, a terracotta-clad interpretation of the weather-beaten barns that populate the Jutland region with a symmetrical L-shaped plan flexible enough to enable a wide range of functions and activities. The architectural pièces de résistance: two soaring light wells on either end of the structure that evoke bakers’ kilns and imbue the teaching and exhibition spaces within them with an ethereal quality and sense of grandeur. At the intersection of the cultural facility’s two wings, a central bread oven anchors the public spaces, which are all clad in monochromatic wood.
Framing a courtyard area with a terrace that overlooks the expansive fields of golden wheat, House of Grain reimagines the generic farmhouse vernacular with exceptional specificity and demonstrates that rural architecture can be just as contemporary as its urban counterparts. A beautiful destination building, it feeds into the client’s mission to connect people to the provenance of their food, helping them rediscover the missing link between sustainable food production and modern ways of living.
Team Reiulf Ramstad with Christian Skram Fuglset and Peter Kornmaaler Hansen (Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter); Ejendomsfonden Kornets Hus
Replacing an existing farm and bakery, the new building, designed by Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter, is sure to solidify Hjørring as a must-see town.
