The period that the research explores is a relatively turbulent era during which the Norwegian society profoundly evolved.41 It is an era of continuous transformation, where the context of the 1980s gradually replaces the context of the 1960s; with the 1970s as an ideological battlefield within which the old values would continually encounter, and subsequently clash with the emerging socio-political and economic realities. The chosen period reflects a context with changing societal processes inherent both to the international (the European and the Nordic) and to the local Norwegian trends, where these processes have fostered specific types of building conditions and assignments on one side, and influenced architectural and urbanistic sensibilities on the other. The following chapter will examine architecture culture of the period, shedding light on ideals, ideas and imaginaries. This examination will focus on emerging and overlapping discourses and to what degree these had yielded a new terminology relating to architecture and the city.
Byggekunst 1966–83
The period’s contemporary architectural discourse in Norway may be said to revolve around the establishment of a new operational model for architecture production on one side, and a critique of modernist practices on the other.
One of the first signals showing this new condition took place in Byggekunst 2/1966 treating the theme of “Dense or Scattered” [Tett eller spredt]. It was a recap of the 1965 annual conference by the Norwegian Association of Architects, being also the very first introduction of structuralist ideas to the broader Norwegian architecture public. Predictably enough, by the end of the 1970s, this condition would be even more apparent, where the subsequent fragmentation of architecture discourse would perform as an underlying strategy for the magazine’s new editorial board.42 Within such a context, architectural production and its discourse were treated through magazine issues
41 A more thorough examination of these changes is part of the later chapters where socio-cultural and political context is discussed in relation to the specific cases.
42 Tore Brantenberg, Peter Butenschøn and Sven Erik Svendsen took over in 1979, after a fifteen-year reign by Christian Norberg-Schulz as editor. In 1982, Ketil Kiran would step in for Peter Butenschøn, but the editorial group would be replaced by Ulf Grønvold in 1983.
with specific, usually non-relatable themes, for example urban revitalization (1/1979), children (4/1979), large buildings (5/1979), small buildings and building tradition (6/1979), art and architecture (2/1980), alternative technology (2/1981) and vocational architecture (5/1981).
During the early 1980s, the focus would slowly attach itself to the topic of emerging urban practice visible in several magazine issues.43 Out of numerous presentations and articles, one should mention the extensive review of Ralph Erskin’s Byker44 renewal project in Newcastle by Jan Gehl, Lars Gemzøe and Steen Holmgren in Byggekunst 5/1980. (16) The article, under the title
“Byker – a Softer City” [Byker – en blødere by?] comprehensively illustrated complexities, and new approaches within the project of urban renewal.
Participation, pedestrianization, spatial variation offering different degrees of privacy, as well as an extensive integration of vegetation into the outdoor areas, were some of the intertwining intentions influencing the design,45 clearly echoing Gehl’s influential 1971 book, Life Between Buildings. As an additional snapshot, one should also mention Gordon Cullen’s reportage with the title
“Oslo” published in Byggekunst 7/1981. (17) In his recognizable approach coined through the 1961 book Townscape, Cullen portrayed specific places that presumably constituted the city’s identity, from the Royal Palace, Akershus Castle, University, Cathedral and Karl Johan axis.46 Oslo would become synonymous with its inner area, the 19th century city, the one appearing in the paintings of Munch. If Gehl’s article discussed the framework of contemporary practice, undoubtedly Cullen’s hand-drawn reportage suggested the very place of architectural and urbanistic intervention – the inner existing city – where the new contemporary practice was to project its stratagems.
The positions within the Norwegian architecture culture would be potentially clarified by 1983. The shift would be made explicit in magazine issues
“Structuralism” [Strukturalisme] Byggekunst 2/1983 and “Back to the City”
[Tilbake til byen] Byggekunst 7/1983. The former could be seen as an epitaph to the structuralist architecture in Norway, as the main projects following its ideological framework, such as the project for the Norwegian Bank by Lund
& Slaatto, were completed. The latter was an affirmation of a new disciplinary and professional interest towards the city itself. This magazine issue condenses how the focus towards the city unfolded itself locally, as it came out just after two of the main competitions were held and decided, “Byen og fjorden – Oslo år 2000” and “Vaterland/Grønland”.
43 The series of Byggekunst issues treating the emerging city was rather long: “The City Landscape” (3/1981) (14), “The Good City” (7/1981) (15), “Oslo” (8/1981), “Housing of the 1980s” (8/1982), among others.
44 This project was unfolding from 1968 to 1981. It was featured in 1976 TEAM X meeting at Spoleto. That year’s gathering organized by De Carlo, was under the title “Participation and the meaning of the Past”.
45 Jan Gehl, Lars Gemzøe and Steen Holmgren, “Byker – en blødere by?,” Byggekunst 5 (1980): 226–230.
46 Gordon Cullen, “Oslo,” Byggekunst 7 (1981): 333–340.
14: Byggekunst 3/1981 (Facsimile: Cover).
15: Byggekunst 7/1981 (Facsimile: Cover).
16: “Byker – en blødere by?” by Jan Gehl, Lars Gemzøe and Steen Holmgren (Facsimile:
Byggekunst 5/1980, pages 227 and 229).
17: “Oslo” by Gordon Cullen (Facsimile: Byggekunst 7/1981, pages 338–339).
This chronological overview has shown some general tendencies unfolding during the studied period, while in the following examination, I focus on their specificities. Through an analysis of the available empiric material from Byggekunst and other key publications from the period, I aim to examine the interplay between potential imports and dissemination of international discussions on one side; and emergence of similar sensibilities and responses to equivalent challenges happening within the local context on the other.
Byggekunst 7/1983
Byggekunst 7/1983 opened with two book reviews, one on Aldo Rossi’s A Scientific Autobiography (1981) and The Architecture of the City (1982), written by a former Rossi student, architect Dag Tvilde,47 and the second on Harald Baldersheim’s book Bypolitikk, written by Peter Butenschøn.
Tvilde’s review was one of the first presentations of Rossi to the general Norwegian architecture public, and was more of an essay on his key concepts and ideas.48 In a similar manner, Butenschøn’s text was also something other than a book review. Rather, it was a petition that celebrated the emerging urban renaissance, which in Butenschøn’s view, also needed a redefined procedural framework to be further enhanced. As such, Baldersheim’s book had offered empiric insights about the “interaction between politicians, administration and inhabitants, between centralized and de-centralized approach, and between wholeness and special interests”49, signaling the new neo-liberal reality.
Butenschøn’s text is interesting because it directly portrays the changing attitudes towards the transformation of the city as “decision making belonged to political domain, and not to research”.50 The two book reviews could be seen as complementary, where the first one discussed changing disciplinary discourse, while the second focused on the changing framework conditions for the profession.
The magazine’s main article was “Forming our Cities”51 [Byforming] by
47 Some years later, Tvilde would be a part of the architecture group G.R.A.S. that was behind the proposal
“The Analogous City”, a Rossi pastiche. Interestingly, Butenschøn would mention this project in his book Det Nye Oslo from 1987, characterizing it as “an example of abstract and intellectual rationalism, presented with graphic elegance, but without visible care for people who would use buildings and streets” (p. 24). This critique may be read as a consequence of the prevailing attitudes to architecture and city, where these were to be discus-sed exclusively in realistic terms, from the street-view perspective. Gehl’s Life Between Buildings was being absorbed as an ideology.
48 In 1991, Dag Tvilde and Karl Otto Ellefsen would publish Realistisk byanalyse, a publication of a studio research done at NTH, inspired by Rossi’s theory.
49 Peter Butenschøn, “Bøker: Bypolitikk i Norge,” Byggekunst 7 (1983): 342.
50 Ibid., 342. Here one may hear echoes of emerging negotiation planning, as well as that politics was about to replace the previous technocratic regime intrinsic to modernist planning paradigm.
51 The English translation is original, taken from the article’s English version that was published on the last pa-ges of the magazine (pp. 399–400). One should note that, the Norwegian term byforming was not translated into the term urban design, even though the content of the article was very much describable through this particular term. My assumption is that at the time, the tem urban design was not substantially comprehended, nor absorbed, within the Norwegian architecture context.
Knut Selberg and Arne Sødal.52 (18) It was a product of the research project at NTH, under the title, “Forming our Cities: Three dimensional planning of urban renewal” [Byforming: 3.dimensjonal planlegging av byfornyelsen]. The intention was to create an overview of current theories, working analyses and methods applicable for building interventions with the city itself. Its outcome was to be a manual for architecture, inspired by Design Guide for Residential Areas,53 made by County Council of Essex in 1974.
The article was very much reflecting the zeitgeist as it argued about necessity for an altered approach, movement away from the modernist planning strategies. One of the first issues it analyzed was the notion of dissolved space within the modernist city. This discussion was brought in through an attack on the modernist prime type, lamella. Here Selberg/Sødal used Lionel March and Leslie Martin’s 1973 book Urban Space and Structures, which argued that Gropius’ conclusion about lamella’s areal effectiveness vis-à-vis city block [Karree] was based on false scientific assumptions. In their argument, following up on March/Martin’s analysis, a five-story Karree was declared as the most areal effective type, and as such was attractive within the framework of urban intervention.
Besides such generalizations, the article presented several essential books:
Gordon Cullen’s Townscape (1961), Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City (1960), Jane Jacobs’ book Life and Death of Great American Cities (1961), Jan Gehl’s Livet mellom Husene (1971), Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), Robert Krier’s Urban Space (1975/79), and finally Charles Jenckes’ Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977). Despite their broad knowledge of the architecture culture’s contemporary context, Selberg/Sødal forwarded only Ricardo Bofill as a representative of practice that managed to design projects that “slide directly into the urban context in a meaningful way”.54 Based on the theoretical landscape that these books had offered, the article suggested several analyses to be used when working within the urban context: the analysis of the image of the city (Lynch); city silhouette (Cullen); structure of urban space (Krier); etc.
It should be noted that a further affirmation of such an approach happened a year later, in 1984, with Erik Lorange’s55 Byen i landskapet – Rommene i
52 This article was the only significant exposure by Knut Selberg and Arne Sødal to general Norwegian ar-chitecture public. Otherwise, they remained relatively anonymous figures. Both are still practicing architects, belonging to the mainstream architecture production.
53 Knut Selberg studied architecture in Britain, graduating in 1975. One may argue that this reference came through him.
54 Knut Selberg and Arne Sødal, “Byforming,” Byggekunst 7 (1983): 349.
55 As opposed to the relatively young contributors to Byggekunst 7/1983 who were in their 30s, Erik Lorange belonged to a much older generation. Born in 1919, he was an architect educated at NTH in Trondheim in 1942.
After the WWII, Lorange worked at Brente Steders Regulering, as a planner in Alta. After twenty years in dif-ferent planning positions, Lorange would become a professor in planning at the Oslo School of Architecture (1971–86). For more information, refer to Ketil Kiran, “Erik Lorange,” Store norske leksikon https://snl.no/
Erik_Lorange.
18: “Byforming” by Knut Selberg and Arne Sødal (Facsimile: Byggekunst 7/1983, pages 348–351).
19: Byen i landskapet – Rommene i byen, Erik Lorange (Facsimile: Page 121).
20: “To prosesser i byutvikling – en skisse” by Peter Butenschøn (Facsimile: Byggekunst 7/1983, pages 384–385).
byen [The City in the Landscape, the Spaces in the City]. (19) This book, following the ideological lineage to Camillo Sitte’s Der Städtebau nach seinen künstlerischen Gründsätzen from 1889, while also drawing on the above-mentioned references (Cullen,56 Lynch and Krier), was one of the first comprehensive publications in Norway that suggested a straightforward method for analyzing the form of the (existing) city. In addition, it projected an expanded focus as it also discussed the necessity to relate to spatial and perceptive qualities of surrounding landscape.57 As such, it was aiming at two different scales: one larger relating to the overarching form of the city as influenced by the landscape and its inherent features, and one smaller scale treating specific spatial situations within the urban tissue of the city.
What was apparent both in the article by Selberg/Sødal and Lorange’s book was that the suggested analyses emphasized the visual, so-called ‘three-dimensional’ character of the city, while underlying forces of urbanization were neglected within architectural and urbanistic discussions. As Lorange wrote in the introduction, “this book is about how a city should be planned, but the aspects of functionality, infrastructure and economy are not treated here.
Rather, I discuss how the city looks like. I analyze how we experience the city when we move through it.”58 Lorange’s book may not exclusively be seen as an engagement of new values and approaches emerging in the architecture culture of the time. Rather, one may argue that it was also a return back to the ideals that he was influenced by in his early formative years as a student at NTH under Professor Sverre Pedersen.
Another article that was highly indicative of the changing times was Peter Butenschøn’s “Two Processes in City Development – a Sketch” [To prosesser i byutvikling – en skisse]. (20) It was a pragmatic and generalizing text, easily understandable for architects, planners and politicians.59 In the article, Butenschøn discussed two processes affecting the format of urban intervention:
the normative and the exceeding. The normative processes followed well-established and predictable procedural systems, and by their nature could be characterized as being conservative.60 These were based on precedents and judgments anchored within existing regulations, which again were a product
56 Visualizations in this book strongly remind of Gordon Cullen’s images. In the chapter where Oslo was ana-lyzed, Lorange mentioned also Gordon Cullen’s aforementioned reportage on Oslo published in Byggekunst 7 (1981).
57 Here, one may hear echoes of Christian Norberg-Schulz’s “Orden og variasjon i omgivelsene,” Byggekunst 2 (1966). In the same article, CNS commended Lorange for his characterization of a traditional street as “a little universe”, contrasting the loss of place in the context of urban dispersal and traffic separation. (p. 49) 58 Erik Lorange, Byen i landskapet – Rommene i byen (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984), 7.
59 This could be explained through Butenschøn’s ability to navigate within different contexts and institutions, something that was capped by the establishment of IN’BY in 1983, an advisory agency focusing on planning, landscape architecture and project management, at the time co-owned also by Oslo Municipality.
60 Peter Butenschøn, “To prosesser i byutvikling – en skisse,” Byggekunst 7 (1983): 384.
of long-term experience. They unfolded smoothly as long as projects and plans followed the predefined procedural logic. The exceeding processes were based on big leaps, those that were too large and rapid being unable to be absorbed by the established procedural systems. By being dependent on ruptures and disregard of existing historical sediments, such processes resulted in fundamentally new qualities, as well as they heralded new ideological regimes.
Further on in the article, Butenschøn questioned to what degree the exceeding processes would still be possible as they depended either on undemocratic exercise of power or extraordinary situations such as international exhibitions, Olympic games, city fires, wars, etc.
Within such conditions, one also found biggest failures, hopeless utopias, and megalomaniac absurdities, as exemplified with Corbusier’s Paris plans, Speer’s plan in Berlin, DnC’s at Vaterland among others.61 According to Butenschøn, the normative and exceeding processes were dependent on each other through a dialectical relationship where the normative one would become irrelevant unless it were challenged by potential ruptures, while the exceeding process would be impossible unless it legitimized itself through a normative language. Finally, Butenschøn did not conclude explicitly with preference of one over the other, rather he argued that having both processes intertwining reflected that there was a degree of a positive dynamic, which would be able to articulate new norms and values within the planning practices.
The article itself did not have an empirical backing and it functioned more as a comment, but being a complementary to Butenschøn’s introductory book review, it still managed to convey an emerging sentiment where the format and character of urban intervention were at stake. One could read that innovation was to happen gradually and that a new city was to emerge within the framework of the existing one. It was anything other than what was suggested some twenty years earlier with a series of urban renewal projects for Karl Johan Quarters, Grünnerløkka and Vålerenga, which had assumed total eradication of the existing building mass. In 1987, this new reality would be illustrated through the book Det Nye Oslo which Butenschøn co-authored with Tone Lindheim – a collection of re-rendered project presentations showing the development of Oslo as the neo-liberal wave unleashed in the 1980s.
This issue of Byggekunst magazine showed that an operative approach towards the city was in the making, both in terms of potential analyses and applicable methods. In addition, the magazine’s topic gathered a critical mass of different partakers. The contributors were practicing architects, landscape architects, academia and historians. International references were introduced, together with local building/planning assignments and discussions. Besides
61 Ibid., 385.
the ones mentioned in the articles, for example those in Selberg/Sødal’s text and Østenhgen’s on newly decided Parc la Villette competition, there was also a review of Barcelona’s current development written by David Mackay, a collaborator of professor and architect Oriol Bohigas, the main figure in the city’s transformative processes. The article “Towards an Architecture of Urban Planning” presented how Barcelona started reinventing itself in the aftermath of Franco’s death, where “the real causes of the urban chaos were identified by trying to understand the reality of the city, not in ‘terms of an overall theory, but as a juxtaposition of various pieces”.62 It is clear that this approach was given through an understating of the city as a collection of fragments and site-specific situations.
This was directly relatable to the general tendency unfolding within the international architecture culture of the period. For example, it was explicated through the notions of archipelago (Ungers) or collage (Rowe), offering two different approaches yet to the same problem of modernist all-enhancing totality.
As such, this issue of Byggekunst is important as it traced the emerging urban project in Norway simultaneously as it offered a conundrum of international references and discourses.
Low-Rise Intermezzo
The previous examination has shown that Byggekunst performed well as a space where the affirmation and dissemination of new ideals and values happened.
Yet it was complemented by several other events and publications relating to the changing conditions within the architecture and urban practice in Norway.
One of the important moments influencing the architecture culture in Norway was the adoption of the European Charter of the Architectural Heritage and the proclamation of 1975 as the ‘Year of Architectural Heritage and Preservation’.63 This measure would spark a Pan-European program where different countries initiated pilot projects illustrating how new ideas and new preservation theories functioned.64 Gullik Kollandsrud,65 Ola H. Øverås and
62 David Mackay, “Barcelona: Towards an Architecture if Town Planning,” Byggekunst 7 (1983): 375.
63 The chairman of the Norwegian national committee, responsible for organization of ‘Year of Architectural Heritage and Preservation’ was Gro Harlem Brundtland. Her article “Arkitektur- og miljøvern i
63 The chairman of the Norwegian national committee, responsible for organization of ‘Year of Architectural Heritage and Preservation’ was Gro Harlem Brundtland. Her article “Arkitektur- og miljøvern i