Not all architecture is supposed to keep us inside; some of it has the sole purpose of allowing us to reach from one location to another. Bridges, tunnels, roads, railroads, and to some degree, airports, rail stations and ports all serve the purpose of transporting people, and hence, are transitional structures. What this means is that, the people using these structures do not intend to stay within these structures, but use them as a tool to reach a purpose.
Still, this does not mean that such structures should only be utilitarian and lack aesthetic aspects. Many airports around the world today feature on the covers of architectural magazines, and bridges in fact make up an integral part of a city's identity in places like San Francisco, Istanbul or New York. It would come as no surprise, then, Norway, with its insistence on Scandinavian design principles that involve clean, socially responsible and functional designs, would come up with a both functional and aesthetically pleasing solution to a decades long problem.
The problem was connecting the island of Averøy - a municipality of around 6000 people - to Eide on the mainland in Møre og Romsdal county in northern Norway. This connection featured a crossing of Hustadvika, a rough and unsheltered part of the Norwegian sea that has always been difficult to navigate. Averøy is a recent town, having been formed as a municipality after the merger of Kvernes, Kornstad and Bremsnes in 1964, although the village of Kvernes has had a municipality since 1838, and it has a church (Kvernes State Church) dating back to the 14th century that now serves as a museum. Hence, the problem of providing a transportation fixed link to the island predates the formation of Averøy. And the elegant Norwegian solution to this problem gave the world the Atlantic Ocean Road - or Atlanterhavsveien in Norwegian.
Plans for a fixed link to the island had first surfaced in early 20th century. However, at the time the link was planned to be part of the national railroad network rather than a road project, in line with the trends of the period. The Rauma rail line project, a railroad from Åndalsnes in Rauma municipality to the town of Dombås in Lesja municipality to the south of it, both in Møre og Romsdal county, was to allow for railroad access to the county by connecting with the Oslo-Trondheim main railroad; and the suggestion to extend this line to the coastal towns was studied in 1920s. However, although a route selection had been made that would have roughly followed the path of the current road link, the rail line was not built beyond Åndalsnes. Norwegian parliament eventually abandoned the plans for a railroad in favor of a road link in 1935.
Although a preliminary approval for a road link was given in 1935, momentum for the project was not achieved until the 1970s. A toll company - Atlanterhavsveien AS - was formed in 1970 to pave the way for the construction; yet it wasn't until 1983 that Arne Rettedal, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, championed a proposal to allow for job creation funds to be used for road projects.
Construction for the project started on 1 August 1983, although the speed of the construction left much to be desired; this in turn led to the Norwegian Public Roads Administration taking over the project in 1986. The project was completed in 1989, opening to traffic on the 7th of July of that year. Throughout its construction, the project suffered a whopping 12 European windstorms - a name given to extratropical cyclones that occur across Europe mostly in winter months.
The entire road is 8.3 kilometers long, 6.5 meters wide and built on several islands and skerries as a ring of viaducts and a total of eight bridges - the most significant being the Storseisundet Bridge that has been featured in many iconic photographs of the road. The road gradient reaches eight percent at certain places. At a total cost of 122 million NOK (roughly 17.4 million USD), the road was partly financed by tolls, and partly by state grants along with the job creation funds tapped into; the payment of the project costs in 1999 allowed for the removal of the toll.
The Atlantic Ocean Road was classified as a National Tourist Route, thanks to the influx of tourists vying to see the dangerous seas crossed by a road project. In fact, the road was Norway's ninth most visited natural tourist attraction with over quarter million visitors. Deemed by The Guardian "the world's best road trip" in 2006, it has also featured in many auto commercials due to its extreme nature. The route also won the title of "Norwegian construction of the century" in 2005, further cementing the achievement of the project.
Although initially thought of as a link to a village of several thousand people on a Norwegian island, the Atlanterhavsveien transformed into a destination by itself, attracting thousands of people to its pavement surrounded by the rough seas. That in itself is a testament to man's defiance of nature.
