THE ARCHIVE

Library at the Ivar Aasen Centre (2000), architect Sverre Fehn.

This is the archive of  Kristian Hoff-Andersen's blog about architecture, life and art. Here the reader will find pictures, text and videos concerning architecture, gathered and produced throughout four years of architecture school, travels, research and everyday life. The posts are a mixture between updates from school, theoretical musings and the everyday architecture I've encountered, with a particular emphasis on architecture in popular culture, fictional or otherwise. They are for the most part not very connected to the point in time in which they were written, and should be worth looking at still.

I encourage you to make use of the labels found in the word cloud at the bottom of the page, or just browse through the dates, search for specific terms and look into whatever might evoke interest. The pictures are taken by yours truly, and can be used freely with credit. Enjoy!

My word cloud, to be found at the bottom of this page. I'm quite proud of it.

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As my readers, may have noticed, this blog has remained quiet for some time now. Although I've loved working on it, I find that it's time to try out new channels and formats. For example, Norwegian readers may want to have a look at my little piece about the Deichman library, published in the latest edition of the magazine Minerva, which was released three days ago, on 21st September 2015. I will continue writing articles, essays and other kinds of text, and try to decide on a way of publisihing.

A big thanks is in order when something like this ends. Thank you to all my friends, acquaintaces and strangers who've followed me, thank you for your comments and feedback, and for reading my simple thoughts on this enormous and microscopical field of society. Thank you to everyone who inspires me, to architects still present and long gone, and most importantly, to the people who want to make architecture that engages with society. You bring us forward.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: SORIA MORIA CASTLE

Soria Moria Castle, by Theodor Kittelsen. Wikimedia Commons.           

Finally, time for another painting! It's been a while, and this time I've chosen one where architectural forms are just hinted at, instead of being worked out in detail. I still find it to be an alluring and beautiful picture, which evokes many images in my mind.

The fairytale of Soria Moria Castle is one of the most poular Norwegian folk tales, and has triggered the imagination of artists through generations, especially since its publication as a part of Asbørnsen and Moe's collections of folk tales in the mid-19th century. Read the entire story here.

PS. Although the story doesn't involve any dwarves, it's supposed to be the source of Tolkien's name for Moria, the dwarf-kingdom of Middle-earth. Do not trust this information.

HEY GIRL

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: HANDRAILS OF MIDDLE-EARTH

An architectonical observation from the incredibly funny Youtube channel Cinema Sins in the video counting the sins of the first Hobbit film (which by the way contains loads of cool fictional architecture and urbanism).

But what is the explanation for this? Why no handrails? Might just be because it looks good, but that doesn't explain how no one would try to prevent the thousands of casualties which inevitably would be the result of this policy. Visual pleasure vs. security is a debate in this world as well (just think of the organisations for people with impaired vision, who wants there to be gigantic glowing yellow arrows and stripes absolutely everywhere), but it's quite easy to see who won in this one.

Why not include the whole video:

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: GWEN'S CARROLLESQUE GARDEN

One of the coolest gardens I know, quite clearly inspired by Lewis Carlloll's Alice in Wonderland, a book which I was very fascinated and confused by in my childhood, and still love.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: MOOMINS AND THE COMET CHASE

I recently saw this charming little film, which was compiled from parts of the old Moomin tv-series. I've always loved to Moomin universe, and not at least the charming wooden architecture that fills it. Thanks to my briliant and charming classmate Inga Hegdahl Eggen for suggesting the Moomin house!

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: PUSHWAGNER'S SOFT CITY

In the early 1970s, the Norwegian artist Hariton Pushwagner created a dystopian vision of the modern city, with cars, monotony and soulless architecture, called Soft City. In this amazing series of drawings, he showed a day in this horrible society where identity is history, variation is fault and likeness the prime virtue. In many ways, this was probably nor only a reflection of Pushwagner's political views, but just as much a reaction to how Norwegian architecture was developing at the time.

One example can be found in Fantoft student hostel in Bergen, where repetition, uniformity, lack og scale and boring and ugle materials are combined with boring setting to create something that could easily have inspired Pushwagner.

The artist kept returning to Soft City, and not all of these drawing come from the original series. A book with the first edition of Soft city was published some years ago. I own a copy, but I'm not sure if it can be bought online. The ISBN number is 9788291187785, and the book is very much recommended.

Finally, a short film version of Soft City:

SPEECHLESS

I'm... I... I think all I can say is 

(Picture by Karsten Reisdorf. It was shared to me on Facebook.)

SCIENCE FICTION

It's been proven again and again - classicism looks good with anything.

(Stockholm Public Library, 1928, architect: Gunnar Asplund)

LIBRARY VISIT

(Soundtrack: "Kristofferson's Theme" by Alexandre Desplat)

18.55 Protagonist enters library
18.56 Protagonist returns "Where the Wild Things Are" dvd
18.57 Protagonist is completely unable to leave library emptyhanded,                  runs for the gardening and architecture sections; grabs a few                      interesting looking books and heads for the exit
18.59 Protaginst borrows

      

          "Trær - røtter i kulturhistorien" (Trees - with roots in cultural                      history) by Olav Skard

      

          "The Well-placed Weed"by Ryan Gainey

      

          "Livskraft - vitalismen som kunstnerisk impuls 1900-1930"                         (Vitality - Vitalism as an artistic impulse 1900-1930) by the                        Munch Museum

       

          "Byen - en bruksanvisning" (The city - a user's guide) by Peter                      Butenschøn

19.00 Library closes; protagonist leaves in triumph

Book reviews may follow.

ANDERS IN OSLO

BAS OSLO 2011 from Anders Sletten Eide on Vimeo.

My friend and classmate Anders Eide made this video when BAS was visiting Oslo last week. It seems to me he's onto something.

Things you should know about Anders: He really loves architecture and is always ready to discuss it. He can be a bit silent, but if you talk to him, you are guaranteed to get an interesting observation or question to make you think. He knows how to dress properly. He has good taste. He's fun. He's nice. Finally, he's talented, but always looking to improve.

Some parts of the video were shot in the apartment in which I live in now. It's in the attic of the red building on the left side of the street in this picture:

MRS. JACOBS AND THE CAT IN THE WINDOW

“There must be eyes on the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street.  They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.  The sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce a sufficient number of people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks.“

- Jane Jacobs in one of the most important books about city planning, 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities'

Does this work with cats as well?

BOOK COLUMN

How to make a book column

You need:

1 unsightly column

1 Polish guy

Lots of books with titles which make people interested

Glue

Nails

Saw

Start from the bottom. Saw the books in half to make them fit. Glue and nail them to the base and the column. Repeat with new layers until you reach the ceiling.

Voilà! The world is now a better place.

(The picture was taken by yours truly in a Volt shop in Karl Johans gate, Oslo.)

A MACHINE FOR LIVING IN

"In modern architecture, every day is April Fool's Day" -David Brussat

(What's "modern" anyway? Oh, nevermind.) 

SMALL DOORS

Why don't we install more half-height doors, like the one I'm standing next to in this picture taken in a very old farm building? Not only do they look lovely and absurd, they also completely alter the perception of the room they lead into. Going through a very low door signifies intimacy, and makes the room feel very protected, a bit cocoon-like, a great feeling for certain rooms (though, perhaps not all). See Christopher Alexanders pattern "Low doorway" from the classic A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series).

IMPOSSIBLE

`Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one ca'n't believe impossible things.'

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'

"ANTI- ARCHITECTURE AND DECONSTRUCTION"

"Not another architecture student"'s very first book review.

For several weeks now, I've been reading an interesting book, recommended and included by INTBAU on their literature list. The book dealing with very important issues, written by Nikos A. Salingaros with friends. Salingaros is a mathematician and scientist who some years ago got tired of nonsensical "scientific" and "philosophical" gibberish (rather similar to the products of the brilliant and funny "Post-modernism generator") used by architects to promote their work, without really using scientific principles in their architecture.

In this book, composed of articles and essays, the author argues against what he calls the "virus" of modernism, post-modernism and deconstructivism, and its lack of organized complexity. He draws interesting parallels between the "new sciences", dealing with fractals, complexity, neural networks emergent processes and self-organization, among others. His view is that a lot of contemporary architecture just projects an image of the results of these processes onto its buildings, without really understanding or following these principles. He also argues that a lot of architects are creating "anti-architecture", because they deliberately break with the patterns of traditional knowledge in building and design, based on human sensibilities. As a replacement for anti-architecture and deconstruction, he suggests an architecture of "Reconstructivism", based on scientific research, traditional teachings and environmental psychology. He is a friend and admirer of Christopher Alexander (another scientist-gone-architectural theorist, made famous by the classic "A Pattern Language"), and elaborates on themes from Alexander, such as hierarchical complexity, human scale and connectivity. He also proposes some characteristics of an "architecture of life", and "an "architecture of death". (Guess which one Deconstructivism is.)

The book is a bit heavy, but fun to read, and would probably be rather provoking to many practising architects and architecture students, at least those who believe in an architecture completely disconnected from the past. It's also rather funny, with headlines such as "DECONSTRUCTIVE ARCHITECTURE", "EMERGENCE VERSUS DECONSTRUCTION" and "EXPLAINING THE UNLIKELY SUCCESS OF MODERNISM", followed by sentences like "Anybody who's seen "Night of the Living Dead" has seen deconstruction in action." and "I was puzzled to read an entire chapter in Jenck's book (2002b) entitled "Fractal architecture" without hardly seeing a fractal (the possible exceptions being decorative tiles).".

I miss pictures, but as I understood, the book was published on a rather small budget. I hope his next publication will have images. I'm also a bit disappointed that this kind of important literature can't be found in the bookshops, but it can be bought on Amazon for next to nothing.

I recommend this book to all architects and architecture student, as it deals with very important matters, and though the chapters sometimes seem a bit unconnected (rather ironic), it's well worth picking up on the way if you plan to at some point make a building which is to be used by people.