Skip to main content

‘A House to Die in’ Is an Unbuilt, ExtraTerrestrial-Esque Residence in Norway

Imagine living in a house designed to look like the iconic expressionist painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch.

To no surprise, the Oslo-based architecture firm Snøhetta that spearheaded the world’s largest underwater restaurant, a low-energy glacial hotel, and the 9/11 Memorial Museum, signed on to help make the bold and bizarre art by Munch into a residence in the suburbs of Oslo, Norway.

Snøhetta a house to die in
Snøhetta

Dubbed “A House to Die In,” Snøhetta was first approached in 2011 by controversial Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard to create a part-home/part-sculpture that would honor Munch around the pastoral land where the iconic artist had his winter studio.

Recommended Videos

A House to Die In would double as Melgaard’s private residence and work studio, and much of its design would be rooted in Melgaard’s own art.

The collaborative rendering of A House to Die In shows a dark, ominous, and highly modern structure that resembles a Blade Runner-esque, extraterrestrial-looking spaceship that is in stark contrast to its natural surroundings and the light-colored sculptures on which it is placed.

Massive animal sculptures function as foundation columns for the light-streaked top structure which looks like a shard of obsidian. Inspired by Japanese building traditions, the house would be clad with burned oak that naturally erodes over time, so the building “changes character throughout the years and seasons,” says Snøhetta.

Snøhetta

A shallow pond of water below the sculptures would create the illusion that the house is hovering aboveground.

“The house has become a physical, triangular wooden house resting on poles of white animal-shaped sculptures,” says Snøhetta, who modeled selected Melgaard drawings before initiating a reduction process to achieve buildable shapes. “A large number of the triangles are then digitally removed from the 3D model, creating a rougher and more geometrical pattern,” they add.

While the exterior of A House to Die In takes the cake, interior plans are equally bizarre. Snøhetta says, “While one of the rooms could function both as swimming pool and dining room, another could function as workspace and spa. These untraditional pairings are a direct symbol of how conventions are prevented from influencing the building’s usage or design.”

… how did we never think of a workplace spa!

Snøhetta

After seven years of drawings, models, and documents attempting to bring A House to Die into physical form, local Oslo authorities rejected the plans in late August, 2018, declaring that the land designated for the building should remain a green space.

While this decision dooms the A House to Die In from being built where Munch worked and was largely inspired by the landscape, there’s hope that A House to Die In uproots its animal pillars and finds a new patch of grass.

Jahla Seppanen
Former Former Digital Trends Contributor, The Manual
Born and raised off-the-grid in New Mexico, Jahla Seppanen is currently a sports, fitness, spirits, and culture writer in…
Tony Soprano vs. Walter White: Who is the ultimate antihero?
TV's biggest heavyweights duke it out for the antihero crown
Breaking bad season 4 screen shot

Sports fans often debate between two heavyweight legends. For basketball, it's LeBron James and Michael Jordan. Switching to tennis, you have Roger Federer fans and Rafael Nadal diehards. Debates like these are ingrained in the culture of athletics, but TV fans have their own version of this sparring match.

Tony Soprano from The Sopranos and Walter White from Breaking Bad are the two characters who still send shockwaves through every drama in the 21st century. These men were the perfect mix of good and evil. They navigated family life and the criminal underworld with cunning intelligence and ruthless risk-taking. Every show with morally gray characters at the center owes its storyboard to Walter and Tony, but which character deserves the antihero crown? This is Tony Soprano vs. Walter White for all the marbles.
Who was the more complex character?

Read more
Learn how to smoke a pipe the proper way with our guide for beginners
Let us show you the classy way to smoke a pipe
Packing a pipe

Pipe smoking is the most aesthetically distinguished way to enjoy tobacco, but you lose the classy effect if you don’t know how to smoke a pipe properly. Smoking a pipe has become a lost art, and these days, most people who engage in pipe smoking do so to achieve a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps your grandfather enjoyed a puff now and again paired with a good stiff whiskey, or maybe your goal is to emulate a pipe-smoking artist.

I know that I enjoy a good puff on a pipe now and then, and knowing the right way to enjoy a pipe has made the experience much more pleasurable for for me. Whatever the case, if you intend to take up the time-honored tradition of unwinding with a pipe like me, you should learn how to smoke a pipe the right way. And smoking a pipe is very different than smoking a cigar (except you shouldn't be inhaling either).

Read more
Don’t ruin your cigars: here’s how to properly season a new humidor
Seasoning secrets every cigar lover could use
faceless man presenting a cigar humidor with cigars inside with gloved hands

If you're a newcomer to the world of cigars or just bought a brand-new humidor, you'll need to season it. And no, I'm not saying to add salt and pepper to it. If you've never heard of it, you might ask, "What is seasoning for a humidor?"

Don't think you need to flavor the box or anything — seasoning is really about getting the wood inside your humidor so as not to rob your cigars of precious moisture. Easy to understand, and getting it done is relatively straightforward as well. The trick is figuring out the "why," and we'll get into that in a bit. But let's first discuss seasoning a humidor.

Read more