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Copenhagen architecture - Arial No.4

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:59:43 GMT

Copenhagen based photographer Thomas Rousing, captures the beauty of everyday life in the city and objects found on his way through it. He seeks to explore the interestingness of making images filled with endless views and colorful details.

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hans christian hansen, architect: gasværksvejens skole / school, copenhagen...

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:58:39 GMT

link to full size image (4057 x 4558px).

gasværksvejens skole / school, vesterbro, copenhagen 1969-1971.
architect: hans christian hansen, 1901-1978, working for the copenhagen municipal architects department.

schoolyard facade in reflected light.

this is a tough building, and a far cry from hansen's previous school in leafy suburban copenhagen. whether you can be too tough for an old working class neighbourhood is a valid question; the woman who runs the school called it robust when I met her, indicating that was a good thing.

a small discovery: the basic massing and organisation in plan is identical to erik gunnar asplund's carl johanskolan in gothenburg, sweden (1915-1924). and not by accident, I am sure.

there is a 19th century main building across the yard, you can catch the reflection of its red brick walls in the windows. hansen's addition is a four storey concrete box with classrooms and a smaller one for the gym. the classrooms are on double-loaded corridors that provide a deep plan good for a tight budget, but also a dark interior, questionable at best as social spaces.

but hansen had made an art of working on a budget, and his teaching spaces are generous and bright, high ceilings everywhere.

artful too is the draping of the two buildings in a pagoda-like roofscape of cheap corrugated roofing sheets, recalling local industrial architecture like the drying sheds of old Danish tile works. the corrugated sheets were a stable of hansen's vocabulary, but he was not alone in celebrating this most humble of materials.

it is in fact one of the things uniting an otherwise scattered group of architects on the left, a group I hope to show with the next building that hansen was a part of, and a group we are going to be exploring over the coming weeks.

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the comments I have added to some of my hans chr. hansen photos can be read together as a kind of mangled, yet surprisingly brief essay on hansen. repetitious and opinionated, it reflects the writer above his subject, but until someone does some serious research on hansen, a complete lack of competition makes me immune to criticism. enjoy :)

01. introduction, amager 1966.
02. the engineer as ideal, hansen's pre-war architecture, sundholm 1939.
03. the church he didn't build. war and the return to tradition, 1942-1944.
04. following fisker. wartime housing, hulgårds plads 1943.
05. the architect finding himself in a kindergarten, skydebanen 1948.
06. developing the restless section. hanssted school 1954.
07. early industrial. nyborggade transformer 1958.
08. the brutalist, bellahøj 1961.
09. perfect self-confidence, ringbo nursing home 1961.
10. perfect idiosyncrasy. ringbo bell tower 1961.
11. the masterpiece, bremerholm 1962.
12. on the fine art of knowing when to be a backdrop. svanemølle 1966.
13. industrialised construction, a first response. svanemølle 1966.
14. concrete charm, bellahøj gas regulator 1967.
15. late irreverence. gasværksvejen school 1969.

the hans chr. hansen set.

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Copenhagen impressions - From Brygge to Brygge

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:58:19 GMT

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Copenhagen images - Architecture #2

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:57:13 GMT

Danish architecture has evolved from squares and boxes, to spheres and impossible shapes.

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p.v. jensen-klint 05, grundtvig memorial church 1913-1940

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:56:40 GMT

jensen-klint's main work, the grundtvig memorial church northwest of copenhagen, is often named as an example of expressionist architecture.

we should always be suspicious of categories in art and the partial blindness they induce, but few categories carry more misunderstandings and nonsense than expressionism.

with jensen-klint, I believe the term should be avoided altogether. we are looking at a neo-gothic church. the great change in scale between the church and the surrounding housing has been compared with the expressionist idea of a stadtkrone but a similar contrast can be found in the contemporary work of heinrich tessenow.

the highly expressive and original tripart tower is the architect's attempt to design a tower that would connect organically with the nave and two aisles of the basic basilica plan. the problem of how to assemble tower and nave is as old as the christian building type itself and jensen-klint's solution was born on his 60th birthday in 1913 as the result of a deep personal and creative crisis.

unable to secure commissions, he decided to develop his ideas to their full extent on paper instead. in a sense, he was giving up his career but the move proved liberating to his talent. he entered his next church design, done entirely without a brief or a client, into the 1913 competition for a grundtvig memorial and lost. to a statue.

a week later, in an exceptional turn of events, the jury admitted to have made a mistake and announced that jensen-klint's church was to be built.

the project attracted a lot of international attention when first published and again in the 1920's when the tower was completed. I have read that it inspired many church designs across europe and north america but I have never seen a list.

hallgrímskirkja (1937-1986) in reykjavik is obvious, though, and named elsewhere in connection with klint:
www.flickr.com/photos/solveigzophoniasdottir/306156116/in...

iceland was a Danish colony until 1948 (the whole north atlantic colonial adventure is a dark chapter in our history and one that isn't over yet) so the influence here is more easily explained.

I am less sure about this one, Akureyrarkirkja (1940), also on iceland: www.flickr.com/photos/solveigzophoniasdottir/291511984/

but the art deco crowd seems to have had an eye for klint - as seen here in turner's cross which has been named in connection with the grundtvig church. it is by barry byrne (1931) and found in cork, ireland: www.flickr.com/photos/robandlucy/763443719/

I have read that there are also bastard children of the grundtvig church in poland and the US. haven't found them yet. in denmark there are plenty. most significantly, jensen-klint's son kaare klint who completed his father's projects continued building churches in the style which since became a school:

www.flickr.com/photos/14716771@N05/2108788850/in/pool-dan...

the jensen-klint set so far.

this photo was uploaded with a CC license and may be used free of charge and in any way you see fit.
if possible, please name photographer "SEIER+SEIER".
if not, don't.

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Copenhagen images - Architecture #3

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:53:59 GMT

Danish architecture has evolved from squares and boxes, to spheres and impossible shapes.

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Copenhagen architecture #45

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:53:34 GMT

Functional and beautiful design and architecture is what we come to expect for Denmark. and danes still delivers.

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