Notes: Denmark: Tradition and Modernity on signifi cant in formulating the modern project in 1. This was not the fi rst modernist building in the interface between the 19th and 20th a Danish context. This was mainly due to the Scandinavia, as many believe. Edward Hei- century in Danish Architecture infl uence of two great Danish personalities: C. berg completed his own house in Denmark F. Hansen (1756-1845) and M.G. Bindesbøll in 1924. Peter Thule (1800-56). To use a term coined by Danish 2. Lars Backer published the article «Vor architect Kay Fisker (1893-1965) the formal holdningsløse arkitektur» [Our spineless principles of 20th century Danish architecture architecture] The Nordic countries are somewhat of a can be almost entirely described through the in the Norwegian journal Byggekunst in 1925. paradox: On one hand they came quite late to architecture of Bindesbøll and Hansen. In the One of its key points was, «We want to create industrialization; they are sparsely populated following I shall explain how the key principles th an architecture that’s in contact with con- and located on the periphery of Europe. Hence of 20 century Danish architecture may be temporary times, natural for the construction th -historically speaking- the Nordic countries traced back to the 19 century. materials we use.» Lars Backer mentioned can be considered provincial and fairly rural. Bindesbøll’s Legacy: The Crystalline Tessenow, Poelzig, Garnier and Le Corbusier Nor were they -with the possible exception of Cluster and the Danish House as his inspirational sources. th Sweden- part of the industrial avant garde with During the 20 century Danish architecture 3. Christian Norberg-Schulz (1926-2000), nations like Britain and Germany. On the other saw the construction of a range of projects Norwegian architectural historian and theo- hand the Nordic countries are characterized characterized by a combination of pitched retician of international importance. Among by a series of other conditions normally as- roofs and simple architectonic volumes. Fre- his books: Intentions in Architecture (1965), sociated with modernity. According to World quently built from yellow brick, these buildings Meaning in Western Architecture (1974), Value Studies the Nordic countries score have an almost prismatic or crystalline expres- Genus Loci (1960). highly on parameters like secularization and sion where traditional architectural features 4. Norberg-Schulz, Christian, The functionalist self-expression compared with most other like gabled roofs and brick walls suddenly Arne Korsmo, Oslo 1986 countries worldwide.1 appear abstract and unconventional. One of 5. Dahle, Einar, Bengt Espen Knutsen, Oslo the earliest examples of such a formal principle 2009. The book main subject is the son of In architecture ”the Modern Project” appears to have become manifest through the creation dates back to the mid-19th century where Knut Knutsen, but a big part of the book deals Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll, the architect with the father. of the welfare state. In this process political es- tablishments allied themselves with the artistic behind the famous Thorvaldsen Museum in 104 6. Tostrup, Elisabeth, Norwegian Wood. The Copenhagen, designed a mental hospital at Thoughtful Architecture of Wenche Selmer. and architectural elite throughout most of the th Oringe. The hospital buildings are designed New York 2006 20 century. Thus a progressive elite culture was diffused through large segments of the with simple yellow-brick walls and gabled red 7. Grønvold, Ulf, Lund & Slaatto, Oslo 1988 tile roofs. The gabled roofs gradually step 8. Norberg-Schulz, Christian and Postiglione, population through social housing projects and extensive institutional projects designed up towards the main building whose corners Gennaro, Sverre Fehn, New York are anchored by grey buttresses. The entire Fjeld, Per Olaf, Sverre Fehn. The Pattern of by the best architects of the time. During this period the political establishment was open composition is reminiscent of an organic or Thoughts. New York 2009 crystalline form with the same fi gure repeating 9. Grønvold, Ulf, Arne Henriksen. Oslo 2010 to experiments as long as they were at the disposal of the populace. within a given pattern. 10. Jensen & Skodvin Architects. Oslo 2007 Projects like Oringe were instrumental in 11. Snøhetta (ed), Snøhetta. Works, Baden, Another aspect of this history of the perva- siveness of modern architecture in the Nordic making Bindesbøll a signifi cant source of inspi- Switzerland 2009 ration for Danish 20th century architects who 12. A+U 469 countries lies in the fact that it can be consid- were generally critical of historicism. Like Kay 13. A+U 211 ered the natural development of an already Fisker they were preoccupied with Bindesbøll’s 14. Frampton, Kenneth and Sand, Bente, existant building culture rather than a distinct break with the past: The fi rst generation of Nor- use of simple techniques to create a sober yet Kristin Jarmund, Oslo 2008 2 dic functionalists were schooled in the tradition artistically valuable architecture. It was felt by of either Classicism or Arts and Crafts. This many that Bindesbøll’s work foreshadowed meant that many of the properties of these functionalism in Denmark. movements were subtly carried over into their The general formal principles of Oringe formulation of the modern functionalist project. resurfaced in 20th century Danish architec- The works of the Nordic Modern movement ture with P. V. Jensen Klint’s (1853-1930) may have resembled that architecture on which unrealized yet epochal 1907 monument the it was modelled, but it was strongly infl uenced Crystalline Cluster. Like Oringe 50 years by older traditions and hence perhaps less earlier, Klint’s monument features a hierarchic determined to be avantgarde than for instance composition culminating at the centre and the German Neues Bauen movement. dominated by the fi gure of the pitched roof. 19th century architecture was particularly Unlike Oringe however, Klint introduces a dual centre and the gabled roofs are partially deformed by truncated corners. Klint is more architects from the post-war years right up purged of all ornament. This project was an modern than Bindesbøll but his crystal fasci- until the 1970s where studios like Vandkun- architectonic manifesto refl ecting the thinking nation fundamentally stems from the same sten (founded 1970) were using affordable behind Petersen’s 1920 lecture Contrasts: ”The Romantic origins, now combined with a dash materials like wood and eternite to create a surfaces and rhythmic subdivisions of a building of expressionism. Klint was later given the composite, “self-built” aesthetic. should calmly lead up to the contrast that is to opportunity to realize what was to be his main Thus the tradition handed down from Bindes- be found in those decisive places where all is at work -the Grundtvig Church- from 1913-40. bøll indicates a materially homogeneous, stake, where ornament or signifi cant reliefs em- Like Oringe it is executed in yellow brick and compositionally consistent, monumental archi- phasize the essential point in contrast to which features crystalline motifs and buttresses. tecture as well as a more heterogeneous one the great mass should be the calm before the Let us now return to Kay Fisker who in his reminiscent of anonymous, self-built projects. storm”.4 This artistic approach was particularly capacity of Professor at the Academy of Fine Both feature pitched roofs as a recurring motif characteristic of C. F. Hansen’s Copenhagen Arts let his students build a wooden model of which was integrated into Danish modern formal works. According to Petersen the effect was Klint’s Crystalline Cluster. Fisker also used the vocabulary right up through the 20th century. optimized by emphasizing the extent of the crystalline cluster theme when working with his The Legacy of C. F. Hansen: Anonymity building; thus a long, horizontal building should colleagues C. F. Møller (1898-1988) and Poul and Monumentality not be broken up by such things as conspicuous Stegmann (1888-1944). The unadorned yellow This ability to work with anonymous state- dormer windows. brick walls of their Århus University project ments alongside the monumental is also char- Although Petersen only served as professor from 1931 show clear signs of this inspiration acteristic of C. F. Hansen (1756-1845). Unlike at the Academy for fi ve years he was to prove only this time tinged with a functionalist desire the Beaux-Arts architect Bindesbøll, Hansen enormously signifi cant to the upcoming gen- for abstraction and featuring a plan inspired by consistently subscribed to the classical tradi- eration who translated his formal principles into Bauhau-director Hannes Meyer’s (1889-1954) tion. Having gone unappreciated for the latter a new functionalist language. One example functionalist Bernau school from 1928-30. part of the 19th century, he was rediscovered of the use of these formal principles across Arne Jacobsen’s (1902-71) work from the by a number of young architects in the early different stylistic expressions may be found 1940s and 50s also features simple yellow 20th century. He provided a fi ne example of in Arne Jacobsen’s various city hall projects: brick walls, abstract detailing and volumetrics an architect who used his methods sparingly Thus Søllerød City Hall from 1942 is from a determined by the pitch of the roofs such as his and was seen as a way out of the eclectic period where Jacobsen was experimenting Søholm complex from 1950. Correspondingly aesthetics which were dominant at the time. with fusing modern formal language with Jørn Utzon’s (1918-2008) work from the 1950s His Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen and its monumentality while Rødovre City Hall from 105 and early ’60s was very much characterized by immediate surroundings dating from 1810-26 1956 is an expression of his interest in the pitched roofs as a recurring element. Utzon’s constitute a unique part of the city where the International Style. Both examples uphold work appears even more crystalline than subtly restrained forms of classicist residental Petersen’s principle of emphasizing the extent Jacobsen’s and like the Romantic Bindesbøll buildings emphasize Hansen’s sparse yet of the building in order to highlight a limited Utzon was very much inspired by the principles effective monumental creations such as the number of monumental elements even after of growth to be found in nature. temple front of the church and the nearby City the disappearance of classicist ornamentation. Returning once again to the 19th century: An- Hall and Courthouse from 1803-16. Thus Danish architecture displays a certain other of Bindesbøll’s projects varies the Oringe Architect and ceramist Carl Petersen (1874- tendency towards long, rhythmically shaped roof motif further although it presents a less 1923) was a significant force behind this buildings, perhaps this is also because such homogenous impression: The 1855 Villa Sollie rediscovery of C. F. Hansen’s work: In 1911 he works fi t well into the lightly rolling landscapes -highlighted as the fi rst Danish house3- was organized a great exhibition on Hansen. In 1919 and wide open horizons of Denmark. inspired by traditional Danish farm buildings he and his colleague Ivar Bentsen (1876-1943) Distinctively Danish? with their whitewashed walls, thatched roofs attracted considerable attention with their dis- Danish Architecture has often been de- and wooden gables. This house refl ects an tinctive competition project for a new residential scribed using concepts like simplicity, func- interest in creating an expressive form based building by St. Jørgen’s Lake in Copenhagen. tionality and restraint even in the 20th century on the anonymous and the ordinary, thus Although this project was never realized its by writers like Tobias Faber (1915 - ), Nils-Ole producing a heterogeneity that appears almost spartan, classicist detailing owed much to C. Lund (1930 - ) and Kay Fisker.5 These same vernacular. This interest appears to unfold dur- F. Hansen’s neo-classicism while its enormous writers have attributed great signifi cance to ing the 20th century and Viggo Møller Jensen’s size was simultaneously a product of modern climatic, geographical and mental-historical (1907-2003) 1943 studio houses are a prime industrial culture. All the windows were identical conditions as decisive factors in determining example. Here we once again encounter the and followed the same rhythm, interrupted only the creation of certain national or regional combination of brickwork, wooden cladding, by great barrel-vaulted openings leading into expressions. However, on examining this gabled roofs and variously sized window a large octogonal square in the middle of the discourse in a historical perspective, it soon openings with the cheaply available material complex. Here dentil mouldings, balustrades becomes apparent that it is rooted in 19th eternite constituting the 20th century equivalent and cassettes in the barrel vaults emphasized century attempts to construct a particular na- of a thatched roof. The studio houses became the monumentality of the project, contrasting tion identity. In other words it is linked to the an important source of inspiration for Danish with the more anonymous sections which were particular political and national-romantic proj- ects which characterized several European Finland: the south and symbols of ‘province’, Finland. But apart from one medi- countries throughout the 19th century. enculturation eval castle, no architecture and only one city We may well ask whether the works men- (Vyborg) were deemed worthy of inclusion. tioned above are in fact restrained, whether Instead, the emphasis is on coats of arms and they are particularly functional, or merely Gareth Griffi ths views of rural life. Most remarkable is the en- expressions of particular regional conditions? graving for “South Finland”. It depicts a clear- Certainly Hansen and Bindesbøll were also ing in a forest for the construction of a typical cosmopolitans and the history of architecture To pose the question of the ‘south’ in relation modest log farmhouse, but in the foreground tends to be dominated by a limited number to Finland raises the often asked question of is a skilled craftsman carving a Corinthian of formal principles, which seem to get stuck centre versus periphery or south versus north. column. The whole series of engravings was for several generations, but which may in fact There have been those who have attempted viewed through Dahlbergh’s architectural ideal simply be the random product of infl uential to ‘essentialize’ a division between south and of the Roman Baroque, with overlays of motifs architectural personae like the two gentlemen north. One could blame this on von Herder and of classical mythology and grand distortions, mentioned here. Goethe at the end of the 18th century; unaware but here the presence of a classical column Generally speaking a lot of the projects of the French origins of Gothic architecture, is used to signify Sweden’s colonisation of mentioned -new and old alike- do in fact share they declared it the true German architecture, Finland, bringing enculturation as signifi ed by certain traits: They are modern yet anchored in in opposition to Laugier’s French classicism. classical architecture. tradition. Bindesbøll’s psychiatric hospital was But even in more recent times Norwegian In fact, it was not so much architecture as an exponent of an entirely new view of mental architecture theorist Christian Norberg Schulz the founding of engineer-designed grid plan illness and P. V. Jensen Klint’s Crystalline argued that identity has to be understood ‘dia- towns in Finland -in order to centralise com- Cluster was innovative even in its references critically’: the essence of the North is that it is merce and mark military defence against the to older building cultures. This also applied to not the South -“the North is a world, scarcely threat from neighbouring Russia- that would the long residential complex designed by Carl understood, of moods as determined by the become the important instrument in the poli- Petersen and Ivar Bentsen, which appears light, while the South is the birth of Idea and cies of the centralised royal power in a vast simultaneously retrospectively classicist in Form, each entity becoming discrete”. and very sparsely inhabited area. Military its detailing and radically modern in its repeti- One could also talk of debt and gratitude. engineers also had ambitions to build ‘ideal tions. Another trait shared by many of these This is well illustrated by Alvar Aalto e il Clas- cities’ based on state-of-the-art French and Dutch fortifi cation treaties. The only one to be 106 projects is that they are apparently capable sicismo Nordico (1998) by Paolo Angeletti of absorbing the great narrative i.e. of allow- and Gaia Remiddi. Travelling from Italy to the carried out in Finland was the radial plan for the new fortress town of Hamina, bordering Rus- ing architecture to appear as an extension of ‘north’ in search of the debt, the question aris- sia, by fortifi cation engineer Axel von Löwen nature’s own building activity. In this sense the es: “Why is it that it is our northern colleagues in 1723. When the town was ceded to Russia use of repetition and abstraction vis-à-vis a and not we who feel united by those communal in 1743, similar grand plans were drawn up recognizable set of motifs appears to be simply traits of the classical and Mediterranean tradi- for new fortress towns in Lovisa and Helsinki an artistic trick which nevertheless reminds us tions?” But their answer comes as gratitude: but few of the Baroque ideals were realised. that in 19th and 20th century architecture the “If this helps us recuperate an architectonic Lacking a professional class of architects, simple can be radical and the avant garde and urban sensibility so often refl ected within up until the latter part of the 19th century ‘build- does not necessarily reject tradition. our own country, and if this causes us to feel Notes: gratitude to Aalto for his efforts in reviving our ing design’ in Finland beyond the vernacular 1. World Value Survey by Ronald Inglehart and own heritage, then it should also induce us to tradition was a matter of master builders, Wayne E. Baker, 2000. search for other equally important meanings foreign pattern books, military engineering or 2. Knud Millech and Kay Fisker, Danske arki- of his particular ’classicism’”. Here they are employing foreign architects. The fi rst leading tekturstrømninger 1850-1950, Copenhagen suggesting that the classical and the organic architects in Finland were foreigners, the fi rst 1951, p. 36f. are one and the same -what could be termed being the Italian-born Carlo Bassi, followed by 3. Lisbet Balslev Jørgensen, Danmarks Arkitek- Vitruvian primitivism. the German Carl-Ludwig Engel. The ‘journey- tur. Enfamiliehuset, Copenhagen 1979, p. 42. Classicism as a universal, standard symbol man architect’ Engel had arrived a few years 4. Carl Petersen, “Modsætninger”, in: Archi- of enculturation is well illustrated by an engrav- after Russia had annexed Finland in 1809, tekten 1920. ing depicting Finland in Suecia Antiqua et making it a grand duchy within the Russian 5. Jannie Rosenberg Bendsen, Enkelhed, Hodierna, a series of engravings completed in empire. In 1816 Engel was made state archi- mådehold og funktionalitet -en analyse af 1661-1703 under the direction of distinguished tect with the task of designing the new capital, fremtrædende danske arkitekters udlægninger Swedish soldier-engineer Eric Dahlbergh. The Helsinki. The result was a St. Petersburg in af dansk arkitektur, Copenhagen 2009. series was instigated by the Swedish crown at miniature, designed in the prevailing neoclas- a time when Sweden was at the height of its sical style of the day -in Greek and Roman Peter Thule Kristensen is architect, Ph.D. imperialist powers, and depicts the nation’s variations where appropriate. and associate professor at The Royal Danish prominent cities and buildings. Only nine of Dahlbergh’s engraving brings to mind a far Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, the 353 engravings depict Sweden’s largest more famous one, made half a century later by Institute of Building Culture. M.A. Laugier, “Allegorical fi gure of Architecture