ORIS: Let’s begin this interview with the history of your project “The Embassies of the Nordic States in Berlin”. You were selected as the carriers of the project in the first phase of the competition where architects from the countries of the European Union were invited to compete. 

Berger & Parkkinen: Well, as far as we were concerned the competition only had one phase. It came from the decision that the Nordic states build one building for all five states. There were no preconditions for the project design. Our project was unique in that we offered a separate building for each embassy, which then caused the second phase of the competition. We even prepared foundations for the competitions in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland.