Sven-Ingvar Andersson, Who Should Have Come from Hven

SVEN-INGVAR ANDERSSON, WHO SHOULD HAVE COME FROM HVEN Marc Treib Sven-lngvar Andersson, despite his unabashed modesty, l. remains the most important Nordic landscape architect of his generation. While both original and contemporary, his designs and ideas build upon those of men and women land scape architects active earlier in the century. In Scandinavia, from the 'thirties to the 'fifties, the emergence of landscape architecture as a profession coincided with the arrival of such design luminaries as C.Th. S0rensen, Troels Erstad, and Arne Jacobsen in Denmark; Sven Hermelin, Erik Glemme, Ulla Bodorffand Gunnar Asplund in Sweden. Although they shared a common Nordic sensibility, the styles of Danish and Swedish landscape designers differed markedly, distinguishing the work done in these two countries separated in the southwest only by the narrow Sound. Erik Glemme ( 1930s through the l 940s); Marabou Park by With only slight exaggeration, one could say that Swedish Sven Hermelin (1953); sensitive reconstructions such as the landscape architects have been more accepting of their phys Tessinska Palatset by Walter Bauer (1960s), and the site ical conditions as they have designed in accordance with the planning for the Reimersholme housing quarter by Ulla dictates of land form andclimate. Their projects generally Bodorff(1950s and 1960s). While at times their qualities appear more naturalistic than those of their Danish coun elude the eye of the camera, appearing in pictures as merely terparts, as if the light hand of the builder has been content natural and unexceptional as form, these landscapes are to complete the natural setting rather than to substantially without exception modern, functional and beautiful in all reform or recreate it. The Swedish approach appears to be respects. Like most great works, they are better to be within tinted by an Eastern idea of recasting an existing condition, than to look upon in photographs. for example, in the way that the Japanese martial art of judo uses the opponent's body against him. In other ways, how If the Swedish designs were relaxed in the vigor of their ever, the acceptance of the given conditions implies an form, the Danish work was more aggressively contrived. admission that what nature provides can neither be over Certainly, the Danes, too, possess a high regard for nature, come nor dismissed; instead, one must understand the nat and their landscape architecture has rarely exhibited the ural palette and processes and use them for human purposes. extreme control traditionally associated with the French. The flat or softly rolling land forms, the prevalence of water The achievements of the Swedish landscape designers in the around Denmark's peninsulas and islands, and a closer link first half of the century include the celebrated Woodland to continental Europe instilled an attitude and allowed - Cemetery in Enskede by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lew one could say almost required - both landscape designers erentz (1915 to 1940); the Norr Malarscrand linear park by and their designs to be more assertive. A mainstay of these 62 2. 1. The Musical gardens by C.Th. Sorensen. 1954. 2. Hellerup Strandpark by G.N Brandt. 1916 3. The Norr Malarstand linear park byErik Glemme. 1930-40. designs is the hedged enclosure. The wind from the west 3. blows strong and cold across Denmark; it created the need for the hedgerow almost from thetime of first secclemenc to comfort the people and protect the soil against erosion. The hedgerow can be seen as the predecessor of the hedge, and the hedge can be seen as the primary - and usually geome trical - element that became central to the work of various designers, mostly obviously C.Th. S0rensen. The elliptical form was a recurrent Leitmotifin S0rensen's landscape designs, appearing as a stepped bowl in early pro jects such as the Marcussen garden (1932), as the principal green of the Vitus Bering Park in Horsens, and as the ellip tical hedged rooms of the allotment gardens at Na:rum (both fromthe 1950s). The Musical Gardens in Heming, recreated by Sven-Ingvar Andersson and Sonja Poll half a Sven Hermelin upon graduation came as no surprise. Her decade ago, exemplifies S0rensen's inter-related concerns for melin had long been the predominant figure in Swedish geometry, spatial definition, and climatic management. landscape architecture as a designer, corresponding editor These are manifested in secs of hedged enclosures based on for the Danish journal 'Havekunst,' and frequent ambassa geometric figures of increasing numbers of sides. dor to landscape architecture congresses. Sven-lngvar Andersson later described Hermelin as "an ecologist and Thus, S0rensen provided a geometric model, if not the me aesthete [who] refused to separate these concepts from each thod for shaping the landscape (and the ellipse appears other. ... He emphasized the values of nature to the architects regularly in Sven-Ingvar Andersson's plans). G.N. Brandt, and artists and emphasized the human right to value chem on the ocher hand, illustrated how the nascent concern for to the ecologists." Hermelin's lacer work ranged from activity and use could be accommodated within a landscape intensely derailed - and one must add caring - landscapes whose elements were both functionaland formally integrat like Marabou Park in Stockholm to his concerns for lands ed.Brandt's noted Strandpark in Hellerup (1916) retained cape planning on a broader scale. His articles for 'Bygd och the Renaissance notion of the outdoor room, while sug Natur, 'his involvement with landscape preservation and the gesting bonds between discreet spaces and their link to the studied development of natural areas display his love of the sea and shore - even if separated by a frame. These and land; his contributions to more popular publications such ocher landscapes designed fromche 1930s through the early as 'Tradgarden - Sommarrummet' suggest char the social 1950s provided the context in which Sven-Ingvar Anders concerns of landscape architects distinguished them from son completed his studies at Alnarp in 1954. gardeners and even garden architects. 1 Almost all these characterizations of Sven Hermelin could apply with equal That the young landscape architect entered the atelier of validity to Sven-Ingvar Andersson himself. 63 Sven-Ingvar Andersson is a man of southwestern Sweden. earth, enclosed and procected,"s producing a pattern of Ir would have been quite appropriate, however, for him co small and independent gardens. As a result, the sense of col have been born on Hven [today usually written as Ven] - lective space is lost. The Helsingborg scheme cleverly refor the small island between Sweden and Denmark - for in so mulated the program so as co create a both/and rather than many ways, one senses che mark of both societies upon an eicher/ or landscape design. A plane of brick extended the him.2 He is, by nature, police and refined, and yet assertive full length of the rowhouse block, offering a unified plinth and convincing. His own landscape designs at times softly co the architecture and series of terraces to the inhabitants. modulate the natural setting in the Swedish manner, while Low reed fences sec perpendicularly to the facade, combined at ocher times - when the conditions so warrant - he cre with flowering vegetation and shrubs rather than dense ates strong, often geometric, formsmore characteristic of hedges, softened the relation between private areas while Denmark. The local conditions ultimately sway the design suggesting spatial extension beyond the individual unit. er towards a more particular solution that acknowledges the During the summer months, when gardens are most fre presence of the genius loci: "The forest edge is to Denmark quently used, the deciduous planting was appropriately what the lakes are to Finland, the mountain ridges are to opaque, increasing the inhabitants' sense of privacy. Only at Italy, and the rivers to France."3 Annemarie Lund has a distance fromthe building's facade did clipped beech depicted Andersson, as he had depicted Sven Hermelin: hedges enclose a second zone of more private spaces; their [A]naesthete and an artist[} He takes us into the borderland staggered configuration formed a variety of common spaces between different styles, indeed between the material and the ethe between the individual gardens and the property line. riaf. Form is inevitably stringent, but poetry and humour are often in evidence. Fast and feast,pause and intention are key The plaza and surroundings for the new town hall at Hoga words in his work.4 nas, realized in 1963, represented the application of Anders son's ideas to a communal landscape. Life was the point of In many ways - and despite the French air produced by the departure for his description of this small civic complex: beret he frequently wears - Sven-lngvar could be the most It is afine experience to enter the courtyard on a sunny sum Japanese of Swedish/Danish landscape architects. His char mer day, with a light breeze rippling the surface of the water acteristic sense of restraint, his strategic use of vegetal or and bending the streams of water into a gentle bow. There the mineral elements co obtain maximum effects, and his ability young mothers are sitting on the stairs, senior citizem on the to create subtle richness within seemingly simple forms are benches, and smallchildren feed the goldfishor dragthe sail all qualities of che best Japanese garden makers. There is boats around the edges of the pool. 6 always more than what first greets the eye. The architects planned the cown hall as several blocks Sven-lngvar Andersson's earliest published project, the gar clustered as a courtyard sheltered from the wind. Believing dens for the rowhouses in Halsingborg from 1959, suggests the animation of moving water co be a necessary feature of why Hermelin was interested in having this young man in the design because "ic belongs co the better cown halls,"7 his office.

Load more