svanemøllen koblingsstation (facility for the distribution of
electricity), østerbro, copenhagen, denmark 1966-1968.
architect: hans chr. hansen, 1901-1978, working for the copenhagen
municipal architects department under f.c.lund, 1896-1984.
while remaining unfashionably faithful to the architectural elements that made up his earliest, original projects, hans chr. hansen never stopped changing the way he applied them. contrary to the eventful hanssted school and ringbo nursing home, his final buildings are silent and enigmatic, none more so than svanemøllen.
hansen's dense web of verticals across the elevation is immediately recognizable; we have seen it elsewhere in bronze , concrete and painted wood. no doubt this repeated pattern represents a translation of sorts of the modular nature of hansen's architecture, though I also read into it a reference to the gothic and, more specifically, to the ruskinian neo-gothic of p.v. jensen-klint. as such, we are looking at that rare bird in modern architecture, the personal voice, all the more surprising in hans chr. hansen's case since he was a mere job architect, working for the municipality.
evidently, svanemøllen is repetition with a difference. gone is the careful craft of the facade of his nyborggade neighbour and in its place an endless pattern of cheap pressure-treated wood envelopes the structure. tempting as it is to see the changes in hansen's approach as the reflection of a personal development, I suspect he was responding to outside circumstances. the sixties saw building cost accelerate to a point which finally brought about the industrialized construction, modernists had preached and promised for decades. wages played a significant part in this, but so did demands for better performing building parts, not least in terms of insulation.
we are still caught up in these violent changes to our trade, struggling to make sense of the loss of craft and to tame the fundamental inhumanity of industrial production, all while aiding our clients in milking it for every penny of profit possible. at svanemøllen, we meet hansen at the point of inception, only eight years after the neat brick infill of nyborggade, and his response is less of a mystery than the blind facade would have you think.
the wood here is neither cladding nor part of the supporting frame. rather, it is the actual shuttering which the concrete walls were cast against, left in place - the process quite literally becoming the architecture. the layers of svanemøllen's exterior walls are - from the outside - wood shuttering, left in place; tar paper; hard insulation batts; concrete. the inside formwork was dismantled as it played no part in fastening or protecting the insulation.
current demands for insulation and the overall performance of the building envelope have effectively divorced the cladding of a building from its structure, forcing architects to play post-modern games with their facades, often against their own will. modernism had nothing to hide, but architecture today is often all skin, no bones - the structural order of a building hidden in shame behind images of perceived correctness formed in thin sheet metal or similar materials. hans chr. hansen, at the brink of this development, appears to be telling us that a careful look at the process of construction may rescue the integrity of the facade yet, providing us with alternatives to mere cladding.
this photo was uploaded with a CC license and may be used free of
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if possible, please name photographer "SEIER+SEIER". if not,
don't.
the hans chr. hansen set.
more words, yada, yada, yada.
_/ /-/, pr_gagarina_167, scleroplex, and 17 other people added this photo to their favorites.
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scleroplex 26 months ago | reply
we are the robots!
tlpjr 26 months ago | reply
ingenious and beautiful. I've never heard of or seen this done.
schromann 26 months ago | reply
A brilliant interpretation of the structure and it's construction, Kristian. Not to mention your definition of many of todays separation of facade and structure........especially if one considers the supporting structure to be the 'soul' of a building.
schromann 26 months ago | reply
Killer shot, by the way.
(but how do you manage to get the edges 'soft' like that?) Sorry, that was cruel. ;-)
tlpjr 26 months ago | reply
It's that custom camera he's got.
seier+seier 26 months ago | reply
well, I'll return for a better shot of this later. it is just around the corner from where we live.
I am quite sure this facade is all about the money, in the sense that construction was becoming so expensive that alternative ways of building were welcomed by clients.
it is worth mentioning that hans chr. hansen never returned to this way of building, at least to my knowledge. two possible reasons: that it was too difficult or that he only arrived at this at the end of his career. it would have been interesting to see it developed further, though.
Ben Lepley +_+ 26 months ago | reply
amazing, the writing too.
My current office-design environment here in China is completely opposite to this rationale.
tlpjr 26 months ago | reply
So you went to China for a job, eh? Better than L.A. I would think.
But I'm curious what you mean by your comment here above? What is your office environment like?
scleroplex 26 months ago | reply
wasteful + blingy .......
keeping up with the joneses .......
desperately cutting a mark on the world stage ...... in the usual fashion .....
tlpjr 26 months ago | reply
I should've known. Where in China are you?
seier+seier 26 months ago | reply
ben, thanks. looking forward to more news from china.
Ben Lepley +_+ 26 months ago | reply
To quote Venturi; in China it seems the current trend is to make 'Ducks' as opposed to 'Decorated sheds'.
Currently I am working at Pei-zhu, hopefully soon I will get a chance to post pics of work in the office.
While I have a lot to learn from my employer I will try my hardest to push the designs back to solid ground. Seeing image like the one above sure help in the fight.
tlpjr 26 months ago | reply
Peking Duck.
seier+seier 26 months ago | reply
ben, from what I have found online, pei-zhu looks great. I hate to admit that I didn't know the company, but frankly I know so little of what is happening in china. I would love to see something from the office.
Matt Niebuhr 26 months ago | reply
So very nice - the photo and notes of a really great architectural effort... That the concrete formwork was left in place as the basis of the final facade patterning is a key bit of information - and makes so much sense to know now! This work / experiment is something that should reach a larger audience! So nice on many levels...
Ben Lepley +_+ 25 months ago | reply
seier+seier 25 months ago | reply
thanks all, when I find the time and energy, I am going go over his early modernist works and the wartime brick buildings and end with his first work of architecture as himself, so to speak, a tiny proto-brutalist kindergarden from 1948.
seier+seier 25 months ago | reply
now hans christian hansen has a wikipedia article (not by me):
da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Hansen_(arkitekt)
no longer quite as neglected...what you upload matters!
scleroplex 25 months ago | reply
congrats jens kristian!!!!
so who wrote the wiki?
seier+seier 25 months ago | reply
no idea :)