In his contributions to Danish modern architecture, industrial design, exhibition design, and urban design, Scandinavian architect Arne Jacobsen demonstrated a broad understanding of the role of good design in life, from the scale of kitchen implements to the scale of the housing estate. He had the opportunity to work on a tremendous range of building types, from the mundane to the honorific, and he endowed all with a sense of the sublime: factories, laboratories, offices, schools, sports facilities, housing, and town halls.
Jacobsen completed the typical course of study for an architect in Denmark, beginning with academic high school, technical college, and finally the Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture) in Copenhagen. This path included an apprenticeship to a bricklayer and study tours to France, Italy, and Germany. Jacobsen received his professional degree in 1927 and was awarded the 1928 Lille Guldmedalje (Small Gold Medal) for the design of a National Museum in Klampenborg, north of Copenhagen.
At the Kunstakademi, Jacobsen was taught by leading practitioners of the Scandinavian Doricist (Neoclassical, 1910-30) movement, including Ivar Bentsen, Kay Fisker, and Edvard Thomsen. The influence of these professors is evident in Jacobsen's disciplined use of proportion and material. His characteristic austerity of means, which today might be labeled minimalist, is, in fact, an aspect of continuity in Danish architecture since the 1700s. Restraint and elegance mark Jacobsen's development as the most significant modern architect in Denmark, a stature recognized in his selection to design the Royal Danish Embassy in London. (This 1969 proposal was executed after his death in 1971 by Dissing and Weitling, a firm founded by two of his associates.) Jacobsen's work had admirers abroad, as evidenced by the many international awards, honors, and commissions bestowed on him.
Jacobsen worked only briefly for other architects (Fisker, Niels Rosenkjaer, and Paul Holsge) before setting up his own practice. Winning the Bellevue Beach competition (1932) was his breakthrough, initiating a series of projects along the shore in Klampenborg. He designed beach club facilities (1932), a theater and restaurant (1935), and three housing complexes: Bellavista (1934), Soholm I and II (1951), Soholm III (1955), and Ved Bellevue Bugt (1961).
By no means the only modern architect in Denmark, Jacobsen was probably influenced in the late 1930s and 1940s by Vilhelm Lauritzen's Kastrup Airport (1936) and Radio House (1937-45). During these years, another influence can be detected in the Stellings House (1937), Aarhus Town Hall (1942), and Sollerod Town Hall (1942). Jacobsen had a friendly relationship with the Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund from the 1920s to 1940, during which time the latter was working on the Gothenburg Law Courts Addition (1913-36). Jacobsen might have derived his contextual design approach from this model.
Jacobsen's reputation and many contacts in Sweden helped smooth the way for him during his flight from the occupying Nazis in 1943. During a two-year exile in Stockholm, he worked primarily as a textile designer, using his extraordinary skills in drawing and watercolor painting to create patterns for fabric and wallpaper.
In the postwar period, shortages of material and labor forced architects to employ alternative means of construction, new technologies, and new materials. Jacobsen was an important figure introducing these in Denmark. He explored the possibilities that industrialization (such as curtain wall construction and prefabricated elements) offered in such projects as the Jespersen Office Building (1955). In fact, the poetics of construction is a major theme in his work. Jacobsen's structural solutions are innovative, pushing materials to their limits, for example, the concrete in the Gas Station (1937) and the Belvedere Restaurant project (1964). Furthermore, his details are exquisite and refined, reflecting the admiration that he held for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. This influence is most apparent in the Rodovre Town Hall (1955) and Library (1969). In general, structure and detail provide the ornament in Jacobsen's buildings.
The second theme is beauty, which Jacobsen felt was misunderstood in modern architecture. He said that simply resolving functional problems did not constitute a beautiful solution. Instead, the architect needed to provide an aesthetic dimension, which in his case consisted of elemental massing, reduction of detail, and elegant proportions to organize the whole. Jacobsen recognized that because the modern architect works with standardized elements, proportion is the way to express his individuality. Simplicity of form and detail contributes to a sense of the sublime, akin to Mies' "almost nothing." In time, Jacobsen designed buildings, such as St. Catherine's College at Oxford University (1963), as total works of art, encompassing landscape, interior design, furniture, lighting, hardware, and fittings.
The third theme is site design. One of Jacobsen's strengths is the integration of a building with its site. It is likely that his studies at the Kunstakademi included the new garden design courses. He also collaborated with the celebrated landscape architect C.Th. Sorensen on two early projects.
Jacobsen's mature works of the 1950s show mastery of building type, proportion, material, and detail. This period saw realized important public commissions, including town halls, the Munkegard's School (1955), and commercial works, such as the Massey Harris Showroom (1953), the Carl Christensen Factory (1956), and the SAS Royal Hotel (1959).
Jacobsen maintained ongoing relationships with manufacturers and clients through the four decades of his career. For example, Novo Industries retained him for three separate laboratory designs in 1935, 1959, and 1969. Similarly, Fritz Hansen has produced Jacobsen furniture designs since 1952. Five chairs are still in production, including his most famous designs, the Ant chair (1952) and the 3107 (1955), which have sold five million copies, and the Grand Prix (1957), the Egg (1958), and the Swan (1958).
Standardized construction and the single-family house type were current interests in the 1950s and 1960s. Jacobsen developed a series of villas influenced by the American Case Study houses of Charles Eames, Pierre Koenig, and Richard Neutra as well as Mies' houses. Although the availability of materials and cost required that Danish architects transform these models, another factor in the synthesis was traditional Japanese architecture with its panelized systems of construction and proportional order. Jacobsen's Siesby House (1957) is a clear example of the genre, and the Jürgensen House (1956) with its courtyard plan and rooms enfilade is a stunning variation.
In 1961, Jacobsen won the limited competition for one of his most important Danish buildings, the National Bank (and mins), which was built in Copenhagen in three stages beginning in 1965. The 1960s brought him expanded opportunities abroad, including competitions and commissions in England, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Pakistan, and Kuwait.
Some of Jacobsen's most experimental work was done in 1970 when he developed three different system houses: Kubeflex for summer cottages, Kyadratflex for a housing exhibition, and Mollehuset. Similarly, two of his most successful industrial designs are from late in life: the Cylinda line of stainless-steel tableware for Stelton A/S (1967) and the Vola plumbing fittings for LP. Lunds (1969). These timeless designs, along with light fixtures for Louis Poulsen (1957) and cutlery for A. Michelsen's (1957; now made by Georg Jensen), are still in production.
Jacobsen's work ethic is legendary: he tirelessly sketched, studied, and modeled a design problem until a good solution was found. He imparted this and the need to simplify form to his students at the Kunstakademi (1956-65) and to his employees. Gehrdt Bornebusch, Knud Holscher, and Henning Larsen are three of Jacobsen's former employees who became leading second-generation modernists.
Jacobsen's influence on contemporary architecture and design continues. His work remains fresh; the simple and organic shapes remain vital, colors soothing, and details inspiring. Jacobsen spoke of the importance of beauty in distinguishing architecture from building. It is his achievement to have created beauty while working across a spectrum of building types, scales, and locales. He has improved the fields of modern architecture and industrial design with the clarity of his vision.
Kare Nesbit
Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.2 (G-O). Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005. |
