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: THE THIRD AND THE SEVENTH

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Please watch this beautiful little film of architecture real, imagined and re-imagined (in fullscreen); it's a nice reminder of how architecture sometimes can be an art.

One of the most important buildings featured in the film is Louis Kahn's Exeter library. The more I learn about Kahn, the more I come to love his work. There's a rather huge Kahn exhibition at the Oslo Museum of Architecture right now. Anyone who hasn't seen it, really should go. Last day of the exhibition is 26th January 2014.

Finally, thanks to Joan, who made me aware of the film a long time ago. I love it.

PS. TOEFL test tomorrow, needed for my applications to the schools I want to get in to in the US. Wish me luck!

URBAN PLANNING ACROSS THE WORLD

Because it's true.

PRUITT-IGOE

A younger man than myself helped me remember this beautiful piece of music, written by Philip Glass for the film called Koyaanisqatsi (1982). The title derives from a scene in which the failed housing project named "Pruitt-Igoe", designed by Minoru Yamasaki (mostly known as the architect of the Twin Towers), is being demolished.

Although frequent attempts have been made by architects to blame the failures of the project on other aspects than the architecture, it has remained a symbol of  how ideology-driven, de-humanizing thinking in our craft can result in horrible and uninhabitable places. The famous architecture historian and theorist Charles Jencks has even claimed that the tearing down of Pruitt-Igoe nailed the moment where Modernism's optimism on behalf of the future and itself ended, and post-modernism started.

The site is now mostly empty, but suggestions have been made for it to be rebuilt in completely different ways, for example in the charming and thought-through master plan developed by architect Samuel Lima. He suggests applying traditional architecture, extracted from examples in the nearby area, and is firmly planted within the New Urbanist approach.

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:

SEQUEL

This thing is on the top of my wish list!

MEDIANERAS

This is a strange and wonderful little film about people living in the city, and how architecture interacts with their daily lives. Great pictures and good music.

SIMPLE

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. - (Probably) Albert Einstein

AVANT-GARDE/COMPLEXITY 1929

He apparently saw this before anyone else:

Plan Voisin, which tearing down a large part of central Paris, replacing it with a highway and huge tower blocks. 1925




"The real effect of M. Le Corbusier's proposals is an over-simplification of the city(...). M. Le Corbusier's solution is to do away with the complexity. This complexity, however, is part of the subject of civic design. The modern great city is like a large orchestra wich often plays an inferior piece of music, and in which the instruments themselves may occasionally even be out of tune. It is the business of a reformer to improve the music and the instruments, but not to cut down the range of the orchestra, nor the number of musical effects that are aimed at by it. M. Le Corbusier has not the patience to attempt this, but substitutes for this orchestra a single tin whistle with about five notes, with which he plays a perfectly rythmical tune. But it is not enough."

- A. Trystan Edwards, The Dead City, in: The Architectural Review, vol. 66, 1929, pp. 135-138

Plan Voisin, model






Why didn't you listen?

A QUESTION FOR FRANK

Question posed by Dhiru Thadani, thanks to Christine Franck for sharing on Facebook.

(Is this Comic Sans? If so, why?) (Oh, why?)

BEFORE THE CARS

Yesterday, the bus gave up on getting us into the city centre and instead dumped us right outside of it. Nairobi is full of traffic and congestion, probably because of all the people driving in their of own cars instead of using public transport, and the fact that the CBD (the tall buildings in the background) has almost no apartments, so people who work there have to spend a lot of time travelling there and back again every day.

Anyway.

When we arrived, we saw that many people were walking towards and on this bridge. There were people selling fruit, and clothes, playing music, chatting, burning things (they seem to have an affinity for burning things in this country) and looking bewildered. We decided to follow, and it turned out that this is a highway that's still being built. In between all the others, there were people in yellow helmets trying to finish it. There were huge cracks every 20th metre or so, which I guess explains why the cars haven't arrived yet. Actually, I'm even sure they should finish it. Research shows that expanding roads only leads to more people using their cars, so that capacity doesn't really increase. Maybe it would be better to keep the life and the people, use it as a new urban space and build some houses and workshops or something on and under it?

CORNELL CRISIS/THE DESIGNER

Milstein's Downfall from maestro on Vimeo.

WHAT YOU'LL HATE IN TEN YEARS

(Maybe you already do?)

Military History Museum in Dresden, with an addition by Daniel Libeskind.


"The new façade’s openness and transparency contrasts with the opacity and rigidity of the existing building. The latter represents the severity of the authoritarian past while the former reflects the openness of the democratic society in which it has been reimagined. The interplay between these perspectives forms the character of the new Military History Museum" Ouch. Daniel... please, just... shut up.

MAGICAL CONCRETE CAVE

I found this strange place in Stavanger not too long ago. Lying just up the hill from the train station, it's a sort of underground crossroads and not exactly a classical beauty. However, with the daylight flowing in from a circular hole in the ceiling, dark corners, strange yellow-greenish lamps and the sound of running water from the fountain and the underground brook, it has a very special atmosphere, and is definitely worth checking if you're in the neighbourhood.

THE HEADMISTRESS' SONG

Young Dreams from Young Dreams on Vimeo.

This weekend, I attended a seminar arranged by my alma mater, Bergen School of Architecture. The topic was the architect education of the future, and loads of interesting questions were raised. One of the moments I'll remember the best, however, was the opening, where our headmistress (principal/rector/leader whatever you prefer) Marianne Skjulhaug played this very cool and aesthetically pleasing music video from the band called Young Dreams.

The video was taped in a house called Planetveien 12, built by the great Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo for himself and his wife, the artist Grete Prytz Kittelsen. Architect  Ragnhild Jordtveit Kristiansen, who writes the blog "Mine venners hjem" says in her blog post about the house that "Planetveien is a dream of glass, concrete and teak, with specially designed and built-in furniture and surprising and original solutions". Read the blog post and watch the video (in full screen).

NATURBETONG ("NATURAL CONCRETE")

Naturbetong - unequalled combination of industrial look and dust collecting since 1950!

Launched in 1950 by architect Erling Viksjø, but somehow still not very popular amongst most people, the technique of naturbetong has been used in several very important public buildings in Norway, including the government building, which was the main target and heavily damaged by the bomb in Oslo 22nd July 2011. Now we can never tear it down.

Picture from Jernbanetorget subway station, taken earlier tonight.

JERKITECTURE

When a building is being a jerk to its surrounding neighbours, that's jerkitecture. Look at the poor little mansion next to that big, brutal, attention-seeking hotel or whatever it is. The picture was taken in Cascais, Portugal, but jerkitecture can be found almost anywhere in the world, and I expect I will be posting more of it. I haven't been able to find the name of the buildings and their architects, so if you know, please tell me.

BEFORE/AFTER

Before:

After: 

(Click on the pictures!) Is this fair? And if so, why? I mean, the weather is different, the season is different... but still. It seems something went terribly wrong, and all I really have to say is this:

Thanks a lot, 20th century!

Pictures of Bergen by Marianne Skjulhaug, rector at BAS.

DIGNITY PT. II

So, who's doing a better job at ageing with dignity?

This old concrete column?

Or Brigitte Bardot?

GRAY DAY

I can't believe the month that just passed was May, and not October. Today is another gray, cold day in Bergen.