Elvebakken School is situated north facing in a sparsely wooded pine forest on a sloping plain below Sandfallet. This is one of many reconstructed schools that the architect Kirsten Sjøgren-Erichsen designed while she ran a private architecture practice in Alta during the 1950s.

Elvebakken is a large school complex with many classrooms. The school is arranged in a U-form around the schoolyard - with a two-storied, brick building that is painted yellow in the middle and wings housing classrooms that stem out from it. These wings housing the classrooms are one-storied and built with timber frames with vertical paneling - one of the wings is painted green while the other is painted red. All of the saddle roofs are covered with slate from Alta. The wings housing the classrooms are situated transversely against the declining terrain, and stair downwards, meaning that the building follows and fits the terrain. The classroom wings have a one-sided corridor, where the classroom faces towards the east and the corridor faces towards the west.

1953-1955

Kirsten Sjøgren-Erichsen arkitekt MNAL

Alta Municipality

School

teaching

Brick

woodwork

timber frame

school

brick

woodwork

reconstruction architecture

U-form

vertical boarding

gable roof

slate