Midnight sun-dance.

This centre for the Lapps in the farthest North is both a social focus for a people changing from nomadism to settlement, and an important outlet for their crafts to visitors.

The Lapps, like the Kurds, are a nation without borders. Their territories straggle over the top of Europe from Norway to Russia, and they still continue traditions of wandering, innocent of national controls, with routes directed by the needs of herds of reindeer and the run of salmon. But, though they naturally have some grumbles, the Sami folk (which is what the Lapps call themselves) are vastly better off than the Kurds. The Scandinavian countries spend large sums on providing infrastructure and education in the far north, and the Lapps have snow-cats (motorised sledges), and settlements with electricity, mains water, and centrally-heated houses that most of them use, at least in winter. (The picture in Russia is rather different, but there is nothing like the antagonism between the Russians and the minority races to be found for instance in the Caucuses.)

Karasjok is the Norwegian capital of the Lapps, north of the top of Sweden, and only a few kilometres west of the Finnish border. Here, there is no sun at all for two months in the middle of winter when the temperature can drop to below -40 [degrees] C; in mid summer the temperature can rise to 20 and the sun never sets, shining from the north at midnight. The Karasjok Samelandssenter is the focus of Lappish cultural, commercial and political activity. It lies on the edge of the scattered settlement on a little plateau at the top of a bank. Here, it informally locks into the complex formed by the Karasjok Hotel and the Gjestgiveri (inn) to form a loose public area, which becomes much more ordered within the embrace of the centre. It is cranked in plan to contain a marketplace that opens towards the east and the much larger and looser space enclosed by the hotel and inn.

The form of the centre is intended to make it welcoming in both winter and summer. The generous gesture of enclosure in the plan is reinforced by a curved canopy that cantilevers elegantly from slender wooden columns all the way round the perimeter that faces the market place. The canopy protects the timber and glass wall of the continuous inner concourse, which projects bays and wind-porches in a jagged plan under the canopy. The device offers four main ways of getting into the building, and ensures that each part of the interior has a particular entrance.

Working anti-clockwise from the north-west part of the plan, there is the silversmith's workshop, then the main sales area for Lappish crafts, a row of smaller craft workshops, the cafe and, at the south-eastern termination, the Lavvu, the auditorium which is the seat of the Lapp Parliament. Throughout, structure and cladding are of exposed timber (Scandinavian pine); the warmth of the wood and its aroma permeate interior and exterior. The balance between the open flowing volume of the concourse and the smaller, particular spaces of the individual shops and the cafe is admirably handled, with for instance the workshops opening like small cosy caves off the public area.

Outside, the canopy is treated with clear wood oil to emphasise the qualities of the excellent timber structural members. The wood cladding is coated with light wood tar, which makes it darker than natural and so offsets the paler columns and radiating beams of the canopy. The pungent smell of the tar adds an extra sensual dimension to appreciation of the building and can be detected even in winter when I visited the building. It must become quite powerful in the hot months, when presumably it does something to deter the hordes of mosquitoes, the summer curse of the North.

Roofs are clad in shiny silver aluminium and zinc, which gives the high asymmetrical light chute over the parliament chamber a heraldic presence. (It is in a way an abstraction of one of the traditional dwellings of the North, the skin and pole koda, the Lapp equivalent of the North American wigwam.) Apart from a few window frames picked out in the Sami national colours red, yeIlow and blue, there are no other obvious attempts to add overt Lappish notes to the building. (One can imagine only too clearly how a building made to celebrate an ancient but nomadic culture might have been handled elsewhere but, although the building is partly made to cater for the tourist industry, there are no traces of the Disney approach here.) The architects hope that their building, with its natural materials and clear, welcoming forms will age gracefully in the fierce climate and the attrition of thousands of visitors. It is a decent and dignified centre for a culture that is gradually changing from a nomadic to a settled way of life.