aarhus town hall, aarhus, denmark, 1937-1942.
architects: arne jacobsen, 1902-1971, with erik møller, 1909-2002.
after having won the 1937 competition, jacobsen and møller were told to make the project more monumental or go home to copenhagen.
they added the grey marble cladding and a bell tower which remains one of the finest towers in denmark.
you can see how aware jacobsen was of developments in italian architecture at the time. like asplund, jacobsen found a special meaning in the work done to reconcile classicism and modernism in italy and it could be argued that it became the central theme of his career as an architect.
the use of natural stone - and in particular the grey marble from porsgrunn in norway - was to be another recurring feature. notice how jacobsen uses the stone to express solidity and weight in the core of the tower only to reveal the thinness of the marble cladding in the clock face.
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aarhus town hall, aarhus, denmark, 1937-1942.
architects: arne jacobsen, 1902-1971, with erik møller, 1909-2002.
portrait of a staircase...
the influence from asplund on jacobsen was never more obvious than in aarhus town hall, the first of his many town halls and a competition win from 1937.
the building is one long tribute to asplund's law courts in gothenburg completed the same year and like the law courts, the town hall is a riot of modernist details, a collage of highly individual elements brought together under a great skylight.
the staircase connects main hall and basement. because of a change of level, the basement becomes a regular office floor further down and jacobsen needed a dignified connection. by placing its negative shape as a kind of geometric ornament in the floor, the staircase becomes the view from the surrounding balconies of the atrium, in effect making the floor an interior facade.
the exceptional floor in the main hall shown here is bog oak - oak trees several thousand years old, dug out of swamps and dryed very, very slowly. the wood is nearly fossilized and extremely strong and heavy. since it is difficult to obtain and work with, bog oak is usually only used for ornamental work. it was used here because of wartime shortages in place of a hardwood floor.
together with the extensive brass detailing, the beech and birch wall cladding, the bog oak floor makes for an interior of warm colours, kept in check by the white concrete skeleton.
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more words, yada, yada, yada.
Tags: arne jacobsen arne jacobsen architect architecture design designer detail house building staircase stairs århus aarhus rådhus town hall city denmark danmark modern modernist modernism arquitectura dansk danish nordic scandinavian architektur bygning arquitetura Architectuur Architettura gebäude haus gebouw bouw batiment maison edificio huis casa bog oak floor jenskristianseier seier+seier creative commons CC
bandstand detail, enghaveparken, enghave plads, copenhagen, denmark 1927-1928.
architect: arne jacobsen (1902-1971) working for the copenhagen municipal architects department under poul holsøe (1873-1966).
unknown jacobsen.
in copenhagen everybody knows enghaveparken, but hardly anyone knows who designed its buildings. even I wasn't too sure about the bandstand and went to the park this morning, through the garbage and the smell of piss from friday night's parties and past city pigeons so butch they only move as far as you kick them, to see for myself. vesterbro, the working class neighbourhood where jacobsen's park is found, still has a long way to go despite years of gentrification and his structures are derelict and covered in graffiti.
at least, I am now sure they are by jacobsen. the thinness of the concrete shell and the delicacy and apparent simplicity of the detailing gave its architect away immediately - and I have since found the texts to confirm it. yet, this is one of the only neoclassical works from his hand: jacobsen worked for the municipal architects department for just two years after finishing his studies at the royal academy, before opening his own office and completing his first modernist house in 1929.
in terms of detailing and the integration of art, we are very close to asplund here, making it clear that jacobsen was following the Swedish master long before the two met as modernists in the 1930's.
on the whole, holsøe and jacobsen took great care with the neoclassicist credentials of their park. the benches are reproduced from a design by bindesbøll père so admired by carl petersen and asplund, and the one little sculpture they could afford is by kai nielsen whose work famously dominates carl petersen's faaborg museum, the first major building of the movement.
but the true qualities of the place are found in its architecture, not least in how the red brick walls of holsøe's surrounding social housing define the park as an urban space. I am also very fond of jacobsen's floor. as I have just learnt on flickr, miralles said that the quality of a city lies in the first 20cm built from the ground. here is confirmation.
jacobsen's enghavepark from above.
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rødovre town hall, 1952-1956.
architect: arne jacobsen, 1902-1971.
and finally, inescapably, jacobsen's most famous detail: the rødovre central staircase, suspended in orange-red steel rods from the roof construction. the sides are cut from 5 cm (two inch) steel plate, painted a dark grey; the steps are stainless, only a few milimeters, bent and with a rubber top for "grip".
it remains as sexy as when it was first revealed and quickly secured jacobsen his first invitation to an architectural competition in germany. jacobsen came well prepared, having already won a fair number of his danish projects in competitions (basically, that is how you get commissions in this country), and the final decade of his career included several large scale projects in germany, two in england (where he had hoped for so much more) and even one in kuwait.
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nyager school, rødovre, copenhagen denmark 1959-1964.
architect: arne jacobsen (1902-1971).
an overcast october afternoon in denmark offers hardly any light, and colours from handheld photography range from gritty to downright odd. I think black and white may be better for some of the nyager photos.
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