1930 Is Year Zero in Modern Scandinavian River Gravel, the Stern Concrete of Modernism Has Won More Prices Than Them

Norway: 80 years of modernism evident in the early post war period. Viksjø Two of the most infl uential post war archi- was faithful towards the teachings of Le tects in Norway have been Kjell Lund (b. 1927) Ulf Grønvold Corbusier, but with the aid of his invention, and Nils Slaatto (1923-2001). They set up their «natural concrete», a construction method in practice together in 1958. They had a huge which façades were livened up with exposed production of high quality. Only Sverre Fehn 1930 is Year Zero in Modern Scandinavian river gravel, the stern concrete of modernism has won more prices than them. Architecture. The famous Stockholm Exhibi- was refi ned into «stone architecture» and In the 1960s, Lund & Slaatto7 designed tion that year, with Gunnar Asplund as its Norwegian nature appeared on walls after they compact buildings that often took on cubic or main architect, introduced a new world to a were sandblasted. pyramidal shape. In the 1970s, they developed broad mass audience. The white buildings This was a golden compromise that many a structuralistic mode of operation that was along shores of Djurgårdsbrunnsviken con- found appealing. Among them were Christian redeveloped in the 1980s to accommodate vinced the general public that this future was Norberg-Schulz and PAGON (Progressive new assignments and urban environments. a very desirable world. After that, Modernism, Architects Group Oslo Norway), which in They have been instrumental in renewing or Functionalism as it was called, was the the 1950s represented a more unadulter- Norwegian wood architecture and their church dominant building style in the Nordic countries. ated form of modernism. At the same time as architecture are highly appreciated, especially 1930 is also the year that Lars Backer died. Erling Viksjø was constructing the Executive St. Hallvard (1966), a Franciscan monastery Like Moses he got a glimpse of the Promised Government Building, Sverre Fehn, the artistic in Oslo. This cubical brick building has a Land. Backer was the pioneer of modern archi- luminary of the group, was designing even cylinder shaped church room in the middle tecture in Norway. His restaurant Skansen in more audacious buildings such as Økern and a hanging dome. It is considered one of 1 Oslo open in 1927 and he managed to erect Nursing Home (1955) and Norway’s Pavilion the masterpieces of 20th Century architecture two more buildings in the new style and write at the Brussels World’s Fair (1958). These in Norway. 2 a manifesto before his untimely death at the were harbingers of things to come. Sverre Fehn age of 38 years. Korsmo and Knutsen When Sverre Fehn8 (1924-2009) received The 1930s was a very good period in Nor- The Norwegian parallel to the 1930 Stock- the Pritzker Price in 1997, the fi rst Scandi- wegian architecture. Ove Bang, Blakstad & holm Exhibition was the “Vi kan” (We can) navian to do so, it was in a way his second Munthe-Kaas, Bjercke & Eliassen in Oslo and exhibition in Oslo in 1938. The two main ar- international breakthrough. At the early ago Leif Grung and Per Grieg in Bergen producing chitects for the exhibition were Arne Korsmo4 of 34 his Norwegian pavilion at the Brussels 102 building of the fi rst order, but none of them (1903-69) and Knut Knutsen5 (1900-68). EXPO in 1958 gave him international respect. became international stars like the Finn Alvar They were both young, promising modernist The square site was walled in on 3 sides with Aalto, the Dane Arne Jacobsen or the Swede architects in the 1930s, but after WWII they hammered concrete elements. On the 4th side Gunnar Asplund. went separate ways. They came to epitomize it opened up with broad stairs towards the The end of the Second World War in 1945 two alternative tendencies: An internationally road. Laminated beams, 37 m long, 1 m high saw the return of pragmatism and common focused architecture and an architecture that and only 15 cm thick, stretched from one party sense. In the patriarchal Social democracy of was locally rooted. Korsmo was well known in wall to the other. It carried a fl at roof covered on the period the emphases was on «building the CIAM and internationally very well connected. both sides with plastic sheets that let sunlight country» after the destruction of the War, and He became the fatherfi gur for the young archi- through during day while electric light made there was little room for youthful utopianism. tects in the PAGON group and design houses it into a shining slab during night. Big sliding 3 According to Christian Norberg-Schulz “the inspired by Charles Eames. doors and straight walls guiding the visitors, war destroyed belief in newness”. After the Knutsen was close to vernacular architecture created a succession of spaces that made the war, many of the interwar period’s eminent and wrote very early pre ecological statements. pavilion a refi ned exhibition space. pioneers were gone. Lars Backer died in 1930, He designed buildings that were anti-monu- His Nordic pavilion at the Biennale Park Ove Bang in 1942, and Frithjof Reppen (1893- mental. His Norwegian Embassy in Stockholm in Venice consists of one big room, 446 m2 1945) was shot in Vienna during a transport (1950) is rhythmic division of volumes, and his without columns. There is a retaining wall on of German-held prisoners. In addition, several own summer cottage at Portør (1949) has a two sides against the raising terrain while the other leading modernists had changed course. topological shape making it nearly invisible. two other sides open towards the park with big For the young architects who graduated just Both Korsmo and Knutsen became professors sliding glass doors. In the middle of the room after WWII, it must have seemed that their and had many followers. The most important are some trees. As the only vertical elements «father generation», those who had been ac- Knutsen-inspired architects may be Wenche they move through the dense web of 3 layers tive before the war, had retired from the front Selmer (1920-1998). Her wooden houses and of concrete beams where sunlight is refl ected lines of the trade. cabins scattered along the picturesque coast of downwards creating a diffuse mystic light. But of course Modernism was not totally Southern Norway blend in with the landscape. Modernism pursues clarity and daring sim- dead. Erling Viksjø (1910-71) designed both Her sensitive architecture escapes fashion. It plicity. Fehn’s Nordic pavilion manages to give for big industry and for the public authorities. is interesting that she lately has received more this minimalistic architecture a special magic He, more than any, would international attention.6 atmosphere. shape the modern Norway that became Lund & Slaatto Fehn’s other major work from the 1960s the Hedmark Museum at Hamar, Norway. In this and originality in their work. Carl-Viggo Hølme- the super group. building he leaves pure modernism and cre- bakk concentrates at great depth on refi ning Public ambitions and new talents ates his own personal architectural universe. his few but very sensitive buildings. In 1992, Åse Kleveland, the minister of Meeting a complex situation and a rich his- The master and the supergroup Culture published a paper called Kultur i tiden torical material, he developed a building that, In 1989 a very small Norwegian practice of (Culture in our time) where there, for the fi rst together with Castelvecchio in Verona by Carlo young architects named Snøhetta (meaning time in Norway, was a separate chapter de- Scarpa, has become a lesson in how new Snow cap, the name of a mountain top in cen- voted to architecture. This can be seen as a architecture converse with the remains of the tral Norway) won the prestigious competition fi rst seed for a Norwegian architectural policy. past. The museum is inside a big, U-shaped (650 entries) for the new library in Alexandria, The Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, two barn. The middle part exposes the remains of Egypt. The importance of the competition had years later, also had an ambitious architectural a bishop-palace from the Middle Ages, another of cause to do with the mythical status of the profi le. Then in 2009 the government issued a wing contains a local historical exhibition. Fehn ancient library in Alexandria that tried to gather proper architectural policy paper. We will have has said that “only by manifesting the present all knowledge in the world and is considered to wait and see what the effect will be. The one can we converse with the past”. This has been the mother of all libraries. The old library thing that the state has done that undoubtedly his main idea when he created the museum at burnt down 1600 years ago, and everyone has bee very positive, is the project for National Hamar. The visitors move on bridges over the understood that the new library had to have a Tourist Routes12. It is a program for upgrad- archaeological excavations as on a Persian design that invoked the greatness of the myth. ing 18 scenic roads with look-out platforms, carpet over the exposed historical layers. Snøhetta11 had won no competition in Nor- benches and toilet facilities. All the jobs have Team 3 way and had built nearly nothing before the been given to promising, young architects In 1975 Arne Henriksen9 (b. 1944) got a Alexandria library, so this was a classical fairy and the results have been spectacular: poetic job at the State Railway Architects Offi ce. tale story. When the building open in 2002, it structures in dramatic landscape situations.

Load more