Bontelabo: Bergen's Fishpacking District

In the summer of 2018, GC Rieber Eiendom engaged Nonspace for a placemaking project at Bontelabo, the former freezer warehouse at Bergen's cruise harbour. The brief was a communication platform and an experience that could sell the vision for the area to international hotel operators.

In the short term, Bontelabo had everything against it. The building stood empty, sits beyond Bryggen and in the shadow of cruise ships all summer, and Bergen already had an abundance of hotels. Meanwhile the timeline demanded that international hotel operators be presented with the project in August, just weeks after kick-off. Operators had to be convinced of a long-term vision for a place that did not yet resemble it.

Nonspace found the answer in the building's own history. Through detailed archival research, 800 years of sea trade were distilled into one concept: Bergen's Fishpacking District. The port from 1240, the name Bontelabo from 1630, the 1954 freezer that held 50,000 tonnes of fish at a time and sent cod to England and salmon to Japan.

Grounded in placemaking, Nonspace built an English-language communication platform and turned the sixth floor of the raw freezer into an exhibition: artefacts from GC Rieber's own archives, a film made specifically for the space and projected inside the old freezer hall, and a story guide that choreographed the entire visit, from Bergenhus fortress, up the lift, to the closed door. The story itself became the sales tool.

The exhibition was ready for the operator meetings in August 2018 and generated strong interest in Bontelabo from international hotel operators. City planning later put the development on hold, but the story, archive and vision Nonspace developed for GC Rieber Eiendom have lived on in the continued development of the area.