Troldsalen
occupies a secluded waterside location close
by Edvard Grieg's home outside Bergen.
This small concert hall, watched over by a
life-sized statue of the composer, is the
venue for regular concerts of Grieg's
music. Designed by Peter Helland-Hansen
and Svere Lied in 1985 it fits beautifully
into a narrow hilly site with the concert
audience able to look out beyond the stage to
see the small hut beside the water that
Grieg's used when composing.
In 2012 Kristin Jarmund
Arkitekter completed the first phase of a
project to thoroughly renovate and improve
the acoustics of the building. They
explain that, "... We
have focused on this strong relation
to the surrounding landscape and
redesigned the glass wall behind the
stage completely without
mullions. The visual expression of
the concert hall has been simplified
by painting the walls and ceilings.
New lighting, wooden floors and
leather seats also contributes to the
new delicate impression. The
stage entrance has been rotated so
that musicians have visual contact
with their audience as they enter the
stage from below. The
soundproof entrance to the concert
hall has been improved acoustically
and the outside walls have been clad
with perforated copper plates
highlighting the shape of the entrance
box against the white walls."
The Grieg Museum's
website adds that, "... The sunken
building is so well-adapted to the
terrain that it is almost invisible to
visitors who cross the little bridge
to Troldhaugen. An ingenious touch was
to add a turf roof, which not only
makes Troldsalen blend wonderfully
with the surrounding vegetation, but
which also forms a poignant link
between traditional and modern
building techniques. By the
entrance we find Ingebrigt Vik's
bronze statue of Edvard Grieg from
1917, a copy of which also stands in
Bergen’s central park. This sculpture
is life size – like Grieg himself its
height is 1.52 m."