– Why preserve Alta City Hall?
Alta has a unique opportunity to be calculated among municipalities on the will and expertise to contribute to future generations' building customs; Regenerative building tradition.
Alta has a skilled and successful building and construction industry that is skilled at building new, but also acquires expertise from sustainable projects elsewhere in the country. However, they are currently lacking really qualifying projects in their hometown, in order to develop a multidisciplinary environment of builder expertise, professional consultants and special suppliers.
Many people have a responsibility here, but the municipality of Alta is on large resources consisting of plots and building stock, and therefore has a special responsibility.
I myself have had the town hall as a workplace, and have been sitting in both the oldest part, when the cultural office was there, in the planning department in the newest part, and in the environmental department in the 70s building.
There is nothing unique about the buildings separately, but together they give us a continuous physical documentation of Alta's history and development from the recovery from to the present day – crowned by a wonderfully beautiful municipal council hall with light and air and space for both insight and views.
The municipal council hall is perhaps the most important physical documentation of the important role of local democracy in the Alta community. Do we volunteer to erase this story? Isn't this a story we should be proud of and show off to visitors and future generations? There are few built traces from before 1940, and now the first post -war generation of public buildings disappears without taking the time to think about what they mean for Alta's identity?
Both Tromsø, Hammerfest and Bodø have taken care of their public buildings from the same period, and have been given beautiful town halls adapted to modern operations, but with patina and historical rush in the walls. In Bodø they have built two recovery buildings with a new building and got a magnificent town hall that almost takes the breath of everyone who comes to visit. Here they have really invested, but rehabilitation can be done both on fire extinguishers and more expensive.
If Alta is to help reach the ambitious national climate goals, reuse of Alta City Hall is a low -hanging fruit. Of course, some have calculated this, but they have skipped some facts.
National statistics show that total renovation is approx. NOK 20-40,000 per. m², depending on whether there is both exterior and interior renovation. A new building will cost approx. NOK 50-70,000 per. m². This means that through a use and development of local expertise you can descend at about half the cost.
Alta is from old of the building on austerity and smart use of local resources, and this expertise is important to appreciate and preserve. Something new needs to be built, and some parts should probably be sanitized, but there is plenty of room on the site for the future of the future. Both politicians and administration should be investigated by someone with expertise in total renovation, reuse and sustainability. In this way, you can succeed in preserving the physical building history for posterity, and get a town hall with a unique, modern and future -oriented identity – at half the cost.
Alta 12 March 2025
