Summary

We have looked at a lot of buildings here over the last nine months. I tried to provide a sense of the breadth of my research. The effort was well worth it. I was able to complete a first draft of the thesis and am well on my way to becoming an architect. I want to thank the Valle Scholarship people for the generosity in the providing the funds for the trip. With out them none of this would have been possible.

I presented various portions of the research I was doing while in Norway. The final part of the thesis is involved in a comparison of the fehn buildings with the vernacular architecture. I attempted to find an underling similarity in approach rather then a surface manifestation of form or detail. I identified five aspects of the vernacular that I felt were present in the buildings of Fehn. These were: an understanding of environment in which the building is situated, a relationship to the culture in which the architecture will function, a human scale to the spaces, a harmony between the part of a building and the whole, and finally an understanding of the nature of the material used to build.

I felt that Fehn exhibited a similar understanding of each of these aspects of the built environment to that of the vernacular craftsmen. That is not to say that Fehn is solely occupied with the vernacular, indeed he is firmly rooted in modern thought of construction. However, the vernacular has influenced his work, it has given his work flavor and situated it in its environment and culture.

As a formative exercise the investigation has been invaluable. I believe that the vernacular has a lot to tell us about the way in which we dwell in this world. And I believe we can dwell in a better way and that architecture can help us do that.

My goal is to carry this understanding of vernacular into the future and develop a deeper occupation of architecture in the world.

Church, Fotomuseum

Stave Church

Prior to the Middle Ages, ceremonial buildings are nonexistent. There are a few possible reasons for this. First, the type of worship before Christianity did not create any lasting structures. This is either because the ceremonies were individual, taking place in the family dwelling, or because they were performed in the wild. Another reason is that the buildings, if any, did not survive in the archeological record. However, in the Scandinavian Middle Ages, we find the explosion of Christianity bringing with it the house or worship. In Norway this breeds the stave church.

The first of these were simple wooden constructions all of which have disappeared with age. These first houses of worship were most likely single celled buildings with simple altars. As Christianity takes hold the church building gains larger significance in the community. The articulation of the various parts of the church, nave, isle, chancel, and sanctuary can be seen as an expression of the growing functions of Christianity. These developments take their cue from the arrangement of churches and cathedrals in the larger Christian Europe. An example of the simple church beginnings comes from Holtalan, Trondelag Norway from 1050ad. The heavy posts and the siding are set on a sill, which is set on a stone. This prevented rotting and allowed the church to survive longer then a number of earlier attempts. This technological advance is seen in most of the churches that survive. Of the 700 wooden churches built in Norway only 30 survive today.

The “stave” of the stave church refers to the posts that provided the structure of the building. In Holtalan you can see these clearly as the four corner posts. As the churches develop and become more complex, these main posts are buried in galleries and augmented by interior masts. This can be seen in the church at Borgund. Here, the gallery surrounds the main nave and chancel. The staves are providing the structure of the main walls. Additional post are located at significant points in the gallery wall as well as columns, or masts, running down the interior and creating the taller central portion of the roof. This multiplying of the columns creates the cascading roofline of the church.

The traditional siding of the stave church was vertical planks set in sills. Some churches, however, eventually covered this vertical siding with horizontal siding and, in the process, covering the staves. This is seen at Roldal.

Wood was the primary material for the churches of Norway because of its abundance and the level of sophistication achieved by the craftsmen. There were, however, a few cathedrals built of stone. An example of this is the Trondheim Cathedral and Bishopric. These cathedrals were built by imported craftsmen, in most cases from England.

Fotomuseum:

The National Museum of Photography occupies the top floors of a decommissioned Naval depot. The brick building was originally built in 1861. In recent years the Norwegian Navy has restructured its defense and allowed several buildings to be turned over to museums of various types. The space is 158x15 meters. There are three main parts to the public space of the museum. A gallery for changing exhibits and display of photographs, and the permanent exhibit of the museum containing various pieces of camera equipment occupy the eastern side of the building. The Library takes up most of the west with administration offices filling the end of the building. A set of stairs brings the museum patron to the 4th floor and opens up in between the library and the exhibit space.

The building was designed to withstand a barrage of enemy fire. Solid brick vaults make up the space. Fehn has used these vaults in much the same way as he used the existing building at Hedmark’s. Here, however, he chooses steal and wood to separate and at the same time integrate the intervention. The floors have been raised to run mechanical and electrical services and are held off the existing wall by a steel section. This steel section is in turn used to support the various exhibits of the permanent gallery. Elegant steel display mounts come off of these sections and then tie back into the brick wall. This dialogue is softened by Fehn’s use of oak in end panels and for seating and the flooring. In contrast, the walls of the revolving exhibit space have been whitewashed to better set off the photographs hung here.

6: Loft, Bang, Korsmo and Carl Bødtker's house

Loft

The loft is the storehouse of the farmstead. Besides the stue, the loft is the second most important building on the farmstead. It represents the farmer’s holdings. The loft was a storage house for grains and clothing and other goods as well as sometime summer sleeping quarters. This two-story building held a prominent place among the collection of buildings around the tun. Its stature was further increased when, for practicable reasons, it was lifted off the ground.

Up through the Viking period, storage of excess grains and household goods was maintained in the same dwelling as the people. The Loft arises with the increase of arable land and more efficient farming practices. As production increases the amount of space needed to store grain increases. Eventually, storage demands a separate building that houses the grain. The loft is not unique to Norway. It is very likely that this was one of the major imports of building techniques brought back to the northland by returning Viking.

The lofts of the middle ages were log construction originally resting on the ground. This creates a disastrous problem with vermin getting into the stores and moisture spoiling the winter reserves. To combat this, sometime in the late middle ages, the buildings are set on large stones or stumps to keep the rodents out. This in turn allows air to circulate through the building helping to preserve the grain.

The loft was primarily a place to store goods and the lay out and use is similar from region to region and over the course of the middle ages. In some cases, the two-story log construction core is augmented on the upper story with a gallery. This second story galley used the stave construction techniques and the combination was known as Reisverk. This gallery was used as a way station of sorts, a place to store fish and meats to dry.

Riesverk: The log construction of the two-story core of the loft was similar to the log construction of the stue. The loft, however, also combines construction techniques from the stave churches to complete the cantilevered upper story. As mentioned, this is known as Reisverk. The lighter construction was used to cantilever the gallery off of the main storage rooms. There is the added benefit of the gallery protecting the in log core from weathering. In some cases, the lower porch of the loft was also enclosed in stave construction as well.

The problem of vermin infesting the store lead to the raising of the loft off the ground. These chassis were also constructed of stone and in some case the full stone foundations were used.

Before and After WWII: Ove Bang and Arne Korsmo

The thirties wound itself up into WWII and for a period of time stagnation set in as Norway was occupied. Leading up to the war there were two figures who emerged as central to the development of the architecture into the fifties. The first is Ove Bang. After a brief stint as Poulsson’s assistant, Bang moved to a small town in the mountains and opened his own practice.27 He returns to Oslo in 1930, and by the end of the decade he has done a number of buildings that will lay the foundation for Norwegian architecture after the war. It is in these later works that Bang discovers “the old objective of a Norwegian architecture to suit [his] times.” He displays his understanding in a series of houses in Aker (part of Oslo) in which traditional forms are adopted to functional plans. His understanding of traditional forms leads to his most significant work of domestic architecture. In 1937, he designs the residence at Ullern for Ditlev-Simonsen. This is a simple, geometric box set into the land. The functional idiom is written large on this house, but the livability is what sets it apart. Here, functional architecture begins to be suited for domestic dwelling. In addition, Bang has some significant larger works, notably, the Worker’s Association in Oslo from 1939 and the Court House, also in Oslo. The Court House is particularly successful as it sits between the Courts for Justice built in 1903 and the Aker’s Savings Bank built in 1932. Bang achieves the transition between these with a simple façade that both fits it between the two existing buildings and presents the austere nature of the courts.

Bang dies in 1942. He was only 47. Had he lived he may have proved the brother to Arne Korsmo who is the bridge across the valley of war. Korsmo got his degree from the Institute of Technology in Trondhiem in 1926. He worked with Arenberg and Poulsson as well as others and finally starts his own firm in the early thirties. Like Bang, Korsomo is effective in using the functional idiom in domestic architecture. This is based in Korsmo’s fundamental understanding of architecture as poetry and in his ability to endow function with meaning. “A building is not merely some boards put together, but something which speaks to us and ‘releases a tranquilizing and enticing happiness in the ever-searching human mind.” This sentiment carries into his domestic buildings because he is looking to life, to process, landscape and city to form his buildings. Norberg-Schulz comments on Korsmo’s understanding of “the harmony of everyday utensils, furnishings, interiors and buildings…Dimensions, lighting, colors and details became important problems, and his best creations are thoroughly wrought, integrated wholes.” Korsmo designs a number of houses at the end of the thirties. These include the Benjamin House, the Stenersen House, and the Heyerdahl house all in Oslo. These houses are exemplary of the potential for functional architecture to develop domestic living. That is when the functional is infused with poetry. Korsmo’s true contribution to Norwegian architecture, however, comes after the war.

The occupation of Norway during the war years brought German planning to the doorstep of Norway. The destruction of buildings and the foreign ideas infused into the built environment during these years served as a set back to the search for identity. When the war ended large obstacles loomed before the development of Norway, and how building should continue was a major concern. National sentiments were again picked up as a way to move forward after the occupation. But functionalism, Funkis, had grown irrelevant. A new idea was needed, and with it a new way to pursue national identity.

Housing was a major consideration after the war. Many people needed places to live and the only solutions advanced were “green city” planning left over from the thirties.36 Although these were neither urban nor country dwelling, and although they had little Nordic soul, they were erected. A few bright spots stick out in these years. Arne Korsmo is one of them. He provides one of the major directions that Norwegian architecture would take in the 1950’s. That is the poetic functionalism he had developed before the war. Korsmo and Jorn Upzon produce several forward looking plans for urban development, ones that abandon the strict “garden city’ suburban development. But due to dogmatic bureaucracy and competition guidelines, none were implemented.

C. Bødtker House 1 and 2 Oslo, 1965-1967, 1982-1985

Fehn built two houses for C. Bødtker and his wife. The first, in 1967, was for a young couple with children. The second, 20 years later, was for an older couple whose children had grown and left. The two houses occupy the same slope, only a few meters from one another. The first is characterized by an open stairwell set at a 45-degree angle in the middle of the square main volume of the house. The stairs lead from the entrance and living area up to the bedrooms. The kitchen, bath and dining rooms occupy a separate linear volume along the north face of the main living cube. The second house is built at a forty-five degree angle to the site. This creates the same dynamic experience of the building, but on the exterior instead of the interior. The interior of this second house is much simpler. Fehn moves the kitchen, bathroom and stair functions to the northeast perimeter. This changes the focus of the living area, opening it up and allowing the stairs to quietly move from one floor to the other. Both houses have brick cavity walls offset by pine colums and beams and oak flooring.