Beate Hølmebakk and Per Tamsen
22 JULY SQUARE
The proposal consists of three parts that each relate to the crime scene, its history, and those who were affected, and that together create different gateways to discussing and contextualizing the 22 July terrorist attack: a new name for the southern part of Johan Nygaardsvolds Plass; a circular memorial site centrally located in the square, featuring an inner space with special acoustic qualities; and a reworking of the square’s historical tiling.
The memorial aims to be a place for reflections and feelings, and for preparing or continuing the necessary conversations about the terrorist attack itself as well as its causes and consequences.
– Beate Hølmebakk and Per Tamsen, Manthey Kula
Beate Hølmebakk og Per Tamsen
Beate Hølmebakk (born 1963 in Oslo) studied architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) and at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of Cooper Union. She is a professor at AHO, having previously served as an artistic professor at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and a guest professor at the University of Navarre and at Cornell University. Per Tamsen (born 1967 in Halmstad, Sweden) studied architecture at Lund University, at KTH in Stockholm, and at AHO. Together, Hølmebakk and Tamsen have run the architectural firm of Manthey Kula since 2004.
Manthey Kula’s production ranges from ideal, investigative projects to private and public commissions. Working with the Belgian landscape architectural firm Bureau Bas Smets, Manthey Kula designed the memorial site at Utøyakaia. Manthey Kula has also designed the national veterans monument at Akershus Fortress in Oslo.
Manthey Kula’s works are widely published and have been presented at several exhibitions. Several of the firm’s projects are part of museum collections both in Norway and abroad. In 2022, both Hølmebakk and Tamsen received the Swedish Prince Eugen Medal for outstanding artistic contributions.