WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Nordic Visions of a Classical World (1901 – 1966) Charrington, H. This is an accepted manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Handbook on the Reception of Classical Architecture on 1 October 2019, available online: http://www.routledge.com/ 9781138047112 The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: ((http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail
[email protected] Routledge Handbook on the Reception of Classical Architecture 25. Nordic Visions of a Classical World (1901 – 1966) Harry Charrington TEXT An Emancipated Tradition Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s remark, “On the whole, art should not be explained; it must be experienced”, befits what has come to be called Nordic Classicism, and the determinedly non-doctrinaire approach of its practitioners.1 At the same time, the ambiguity inherent in this comment frustrates those critics for whom the classical world is something less mutable and more certain. Francesco dal Co berated, “…the many clichés utilized […] to explain the architecture of Aalto, […] vague and disappointing expressions, as generic as they are void of meaning: ‘northern classicism’, ‘Italy’, ‘Mediterranean’, ‘Greece’, ‘classical architecture’, ‘Renaissance palazzo’, ‘architettura minore’, ‘the holy land of Tuscany’ etc.?”2 Nordic Classicism is, arguably, just such a vague term, covering everything from the unrelenting repetitiveness of Kay Fisker’s Borups Allé flats in Copenhagen (1922–23) to the festive decorativeness of Hakon Ahlberg’s Pavilion for the Gothenburg Jubilee (1923).