Architecture
In 1988 Öijareds clubhouse & Gert Wingårdh won Sweden’s most prestigious architecture award, the Kasper Salin Prize. A surprising choice of a then unknown architect.
The Kasper Salin Prize
When Öijareds clubhouse and Gert Wingårdh were awarded Sweden’s finest architecture prize, the Kasper Salin Prize in 1988 it was, during those years of the extreme building boom in Sweden, a surprising choice of a then unknown architect.
Gert Wingårdh had designed an earth sheltered underground structure – a building construction shaped by a profound symbiosis with the area’s natural surroundings. As much a landscape as a building. Even in an international context Gert Wingårdh was an early proponent of the concept.
It wasn’t until the middle of the 90s, when Snøhetta and other offices appeared, that this type of construction became more widespread.
The jury’s reasoning: “The irregular forms, stone work and roof shape have well known prototypes, which have however been developed in an artistic and original way.”
Gert Wingårdh
Gert Wingårdh, member of the Association of Swedish Architects (SAR), has worked as an architect since 1975. Controversial, daring and original are just some of the epithets used to describe him over the years.
The control tower at Arlanda Airport, Öijareds Golf Club, AstraZeneca Hässle’s research premises, and the Swedish Embassies in Berlin and Washington are only a fraction of the buildings that bear his name.
Gert Wingårdh is the only architect to have received the Kasper Salin Prize five times, most recently in 2007 for the Swedish Embassy in Washington. In 1999 he was bestowed an honorary degree at Chalmers University of Technology.
The Stenpris was awarded to Gert Wingårdh in 1989 for his design of Öijared’s clubhouse. The Stenpris is an architecture prize given out by the Swedish Stone Industries Federation, to projects in Sweden where natural stone is used in an aesthetic, sustainable and innovative way.
A fault fissure
The entrance is on the roof and from a distance all you can see is an elongated glass wedge. Gert Wingårdh himself likened the façade to a fault fissure in the hillside.
The span of the clubhouse follows the hill, and the interior is in effect a single room held together by a huge, undulating ceiling. Red limestone is a prominent feature, mostly in coarsely chiselled wedges, but the further in and higher up, the finer the finish.
The glass façade, facing south and west, consists of glass sections with a stepped angle in 54 corners, and rises from 7 decimetres to 7 metres in height.
Inauguration 1988
The clubhouse and the newly laid Park Course were inaugurated on 28 September 1988 by Baroness Desiré Silfverschiöld. Ingemar Stenmark played the first stroke from the roof. And to great applause from the watching public landed the ball right by the green.
The hotel 2014
Using the clubhouse as inspiration, architect Johan Brandström at Kjellgren Kaminsky designed our hotel, also called the pavilion. The hotel was ready in spring 2014.
Gert Wingårdh’s clubhouse is a room under a hill where the horizontal limestone reinforces the feeling of being under the ground. The hotel, or pavilion, is a light structure that “floats” on top of the hill. The vertical, roughly sawn façade cladding, like the trees, provides a filter against the sunlight, and causes the building to melt into the forest edge. An advanced triangulated system is the basis for both the clubhouse and the hotel. This makes it possible to get five different views.
The hotel consists of 34 rooms where guests can experience the quietness of the forest. There is also a conference room, a library and a lounge where you be captivated by the power and glow of the fire.