Every design for Førde

Langebrua, the oldest of the road bridges over the Jølstra, sits right in the middle of Førde, joining the two halves of a town built on both banks of the river where it meets the Førdefjorden. Walk across it and you have crossed from the old shopping street of Sentrum Sør to the busy northern side.

What sets Førde apart is how quickly it became a town. It was a small place until it was chosen as one of a handful of national growth centres, meant to slow the move from countryside to cities. Within a few decades it had grown into the largest commercial and service centre between Bergen and Ålesund, with Førde Central Hospital, a campus of the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, the regional newspaper Firda and the Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum. Mountains surround it, Hafstadfjellet and Kletten among them, and they make it one of the wettest towns in Norway – something every local learns to live with.

For anyone who grew up here, the map is full of everyday crossings: over Langebrua, along the Jølstra, out to Øyrane and up towards the hills.