We chat to Snøhetta about designing banknotes, studio rituals and the problems with civic commissions

Every year, staff from the Snøhetta architecture and design agency assemble in Norway to climb the mountain after which the studio is named. Part pilgrimage, part team-building exercise, part AGM, the trip is still an important ritual for Snøhetta co-founder Craig Dykers. “It’s a beautiful place to go, it’s remote and it has a wonderful history in Norse mythology,” he says. It’s fitting that the agency takes its name from the mountain said to house the holy hall of Valhalla because Snøhetta is an organisation both inspired by storytelling and defined by it. “There’s always a narrative in everything,” Craig explains. “For thousands of years everything was passed back and forwards through storytelling and that doesn’t disappear. Our minds demand it.” There are several stories that are attached to Snøhetta. It grew out of a group of likeminded architects who met above the Dovrehallen beer hall in Oslo. It was catapulted to prominence in 1989 when Craig Dykers and Kjetil Thorsen, the former in Los Angeles and the latter in Norway, won the commission for The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the much-heralded revival of the original Library of Alexandria in Egypt. When Dykers got the call he had just stepped out of the shower, and after receiving the life-changing news he ran out onto his front lawn naked in triumph. The annual Snøhetta climb is part of the agency’s mythology too now, but it’s changed over the years. “We use the time to talk about what we’re doing and where we want to go. We used to go just for the sake of climbing but now it’s got to have more meaning.” He says this almost wistfully, sat in what will be the studio’s new Manhattan base. The US office was set up in 2004 after Snøhetta was chosen to create the pavilion on the World Trade Center site; since then they’ve added studios in San Francisco, Austria, Singapore, France and Australia, employing 160 staff working across architecture, landscapes, interiors and branding. And yet despite its growth, many things remain true to its origins, from the small touches (Craig shows me proudly where the new office’s beer tap will be) to the culture. Ike Edeani: Snøhetta The latter developed from what Craig calls “the strange informality of our group” and is defined as transpositioning, whereby different creatives immerse themselves in each other’s disciplines to better understand their own. “It’s like method acting,” Craig explains. This ambitious but clearly effective way of working is further complicated by the studio’s international bent – at the moment it has employees from 30 different countries working across its offices. “Holy cow is that true?” Craig exclaims when his colleague confirms this number, both surprised and delighted (and becoming the only person I ever heard say the phrase “holy cow” out loud). “Cultural baggage is a hard thing to manage,” he continues, although he points out it’s been a part of Snøhetta from the start (as a collective based between California and Norway working on a library in Egypt). “When you sit across a table from someone and say, ‘This is how I learned to do it and this is the right way,’ and the other person says, ‘Well this is how I learned to do it and this is the right way,’ suddenly you realise maybe neither of you are correct.” The diversity of the workforce mirrors the breadth of the projects it’s worked on, from the redesign of Times Square to a new dolls’ house, Norwegian banknotes to the Oslo Opera House. “We try to understand each project on its own merits but what’s important is we don’t want to feel we’re making highly expensive tailored clothing for a few very wealthy individuals,” he says. “We are trying to promote the sensibility in our spaces that you feel you are part of a wider society and that your understanding of the world is changing. You’re being challenged at times and other times you’re being let go to do whatever you feel you want to do.” One of the great thrills of empowering people in this way is that they will use the space in ways Craig and his team could never have predicted; whether that’s the couple pictured having sex on the roof of the Oslo Opera House shortly after it opened or the Learning Centre at Ryerson University in Canada, where a breakdancing club takes over one of its rooms at 6pm every day. “We are trying to promote the sensibility in our spaces that you feel you are part of a wider society and that your understanding of the world is changing. You’re being challenged at times and other times you’re being let go to do whatever you feel you want to do.” Craig Dykers “The vastness of humanity is always coming out in these spaces,” Craig laughs. This is also why he loves platforms like Instagram where he can see how visitors actually react to Snøhetta’s creations. “To see raw footage coming out of people’s interests is a great tool. In the past it was practically impossible unless you stood there and tried to collect data, it would take a long time for you to understand the pub