Finduspromenaden
Finduspromenaden is located in Hammerfest, Norway, the world’s northernmost city. The wooden boardwalk stretches along Hammerfest’s harbor for 600 meters, and immerses visitors in the city’s rugged costal landscape. It was completed in 2015.
The boardwalk is built entirely of Siberian Larch. It features long, ample benches that overhang the ocean, and is studded with stair-routes into the water. At points, high curbs serve as protection and extra seating. Visitors to the boardwalk encounter the newly-built Arctic Culture center, cafés, restaurants, and shops selling local crafts. A system of dynamic lights illuminates Finduspromenaden year-round.
Hammerfest is surrounded by mountains, beaches, and vast skies. It’s a popular cruise destination, especially during the midnight-sun season; for many tourists, Finduspromenaden now serves as an initial point of entry to the north. The boardwalk is named after the large Findus fish factory that occupied the harbor until the late 1990s. When Findus relocated to Hammerfest’s center, it left behind a vacant industrial park. The city opted to transform the old factory site into a new public space, creating today’s boardwalk. Finduspromenaden was designed by Mona Kramer Wendelborg of Remark Landskap AS, and commissioned by Oyvind Sundquist for the Hammerfest Municipality.
One of Finduspromenaden’s most distinctive features is its outdoor lighting. So far north, the sun appears for only a few hours – or not at all – during the winter months. As the days grow short, the sky’s colors darken to shades of deep blue and cyan. Finduspromenaden’s lampposts were designed by Zenisk AS to complement Hammerfest’s long winter hours. Each post supports an array of three floodlights that brighten and dim as the natural daylight fades and grows. The posts are topped by arctic-blue beacons.