A new extension to the Prime Minister’s office on Lækjargata in downtown Reykjavík is intended to be finished within the next four years, Vísir reports. The new extension is intended to replace the current offices, which are currently located in six different locations downtown.
About thirty proposals were submitted to a competition to design the new extension. The competition coincided with the one hundredth anniversary of Iceland becoming a sovereign state. The winning design was submitted by Kurt og Pí architecture firm.
Guðrún Ingvarsdóttir, the director of the Government Construction Contracting Agency (FSR), says that preparation of the land use plan and design is underway and will take two years. Guðrún explained that exploratory archeological excavations will be carried out on the site of the future extension so that the construction can get underway in a timely fashion when the planning phase has ended. Construction should begin in 2021 and Guðrún says that it should be ready to be moved into in 2023.
The Prime Minister’s office has been bursting at the seams for decades, necessitating five buildings to be rented to house the overflow that can’t be accommodated in the current building. This is, obviously, inefficient and impractical.
Guðrún explained that the new extension, which will be two storeys, will include offices for 60 employees, meeting rooms, reception areas, media facilities and more. There will also be a small parking facility in the basement of the extension for visitors. The committee adjudicating the design competition stated that they believe the design fits well with the original Prime Minister’s Office, which is located in one of the oldest stone houses in the country.
Images of the winning extension proposal can be viewed here.
