Gardens in unusual places : buried treasure

There was a seed bank in the Philippines, but a typhoon got it. There was one in Iraq, but it was destroyed in the war. There was one in Afghanistan, but it was looted for its plastic containers. So Norway took extra care.

They built the Svalberg Global Seed Vault deep in a mountain on an island 1300 kilometres from the North Pole in a nil tectonic activity area. They built it 130 metres above sea level to stay dry even if the ice caps melt. They built it far from any major population centre.

Why?

Because the Svalberg Global Seed Vault, with its store of 4.5 million seeds, is our world’s botanical heritage…our potential garden and food supply in the event of an apocalypse.

That’s just the entrance you see in the photo above with its gemlike roof and front facade. The Norwegian government has a ruling that every public building over a certain cost has to include an artwork, hence this luminous green and white light installation by Norwegian artist Dyveke Sanne that glows all winter in the arctic wastes and reflects the arctic light by mirrors in the brief summer.

Unseen but beautiful.

February 2019