Ilulissat Icefjord Park in Greenland

The Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland is a huge natural phenomenon that is changing rapidly with climate change. The park of the same name by Studio Other Spaces provides a benchmark for observation.

The Ilulissat Icefjord Park in Greenland is a center for the landscape around the ice fjord. It is a diverse program in a large area with two distinctive buildings. The Sun Cone houses the visitor center and the Ice Void houses the exhibition space. The buildings are connected by a 360-degree walking path, the Circle Walk. The park was created between 2015 and 2016 and has been open to visitors ever since.

Studio Other Spaces has developed a unique design strategy for the Ilulissat Icefjord Park: The melting of the ice shapes the space. It thus serves both as formwork for a concrete structure and as the focal point of the resulting space. Naturally curved icebergs from the nearby fjord form the exhibition building. Its walls contain the memory of the ice from which it was formed.

The Sun Cone building, on the other hand, is dominated by a glass construction that positions the visitor center in the landscape and offers an impressive panoramic view of the surroundings. The fjord can only be viewed from a distance, but from the visitor center you get an impression of its enormous dimensions.

The Government of Greenland, together with the municipality of Qaasuitsup and Realdania, announced a competition to design a visitor center for the Ilulissat Icefjord. This was to serve as a framework for research, communication and interpretation. Studio Other Spaces ultimately won the competition and implemented the Ilulissat Icefjord Park project together with Transsolar, Bollinger+Grohmann and TNT Nuuk. According to Olafur Eliasson, the Ice Void building in particular is intended to make a visit to a Greenland glacier more understandable.

The Ilulissat Icefjord is one of Greenland’s most popular tourist attractions. This is because the glacier is one of the most active in the world. It moves at an average speed of 19 meters per day. In doing so, it pushes huge icebergs into the northwest Atlantic. At the same time, climate change can be clearly observed here, as glacier melting promotes iceberg production in Ilulissat. This makes the visitor center a contemplative and reflective place.

The visitor center in Ilulissat Icefjord Park is intended to serve as a year-round meeting place for local residents, businesses, politicians, climate researchers and tourists. It houses exhibitions, a movie theater, a café and a store as well as research and educational facilities. In this way, it tells the story of ice, humanity and evolution on both a local and global level and relates to the history of time itself.

The Ilulissat Icefjord Park by Studio Other Spaces is reminiscent of similar projects by Olafur Eliasson, such as the Greenland Iceberg at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit or the Panoramic Awareness Pavilion from 2013. However, the Greenland project is characterized by the way it connects visitors with an elusive natural phenomenon.

“The park helps to make the overwhelming experience of visiting the ice fjord understandable,” explains Eliasson, “by providing visitors with a benchmark for viewing and relating to the impressive ice fjord.” The Circle Walk also contributes to this, emphasizing an open and inclusive understanding of nature and the place of people in nature. As a circular path, it encourages visitors to engage with the landscape and explore an otherwise unexplored area.

The UNESCO-listed wilderness of Greenland has a beautiful Arctic landscape to which the Ilulissat Icefjord Park Visitor Center contributes. The design blends into the landscape and provides a sanctuary as well as a natural meeting place.