NORDIC CLASSICISM POST AND PRE-MODERN.

by Piotr Choynowski

When the present writer and his prominent Swedish colleague and friend Sune Malmqvist embarked on the task of producing architecture based upon classical principles, we had the privilege of leaning safely upon a splendid, though shortlived tradition of Nordic premodern Classicism. In the aftermath of the Great War, the youngest generation of European architects, those who survived, rebelled. Some, like Italians or Russians, embraced externism but the majority turned back to the roots, to the fountain of life of European

What they reacted against was arbitrariness, whimsicality and first of all the irrationality of the previous generation of Art Nouveau architects. In Nordic countries the style under attack the National Romanticism and corresponded roughly to Viennese Secession.

'- in all strict art, certain rules apply. It is of the utmost importance that the consciously-working artist has a knowledge of these rules. The rules upon which architecture is based can be learned just as well as those which apply to the structure of music or metric verse.' says young Danish architect Carl Petersen in 1920, thus revoking the ancient credo of European

And so after nearly two hundred years of idle formalism and vain stylistic search, the young revived the big issues again.

With an exception of Finland, Scandinavia as a neutral part in the European conflict, not only escaped destruction and following pessimistic and nihilistic moods, but has thanks to the wartime deliveries of Swedish steel and Norwegian sea transport developed booming economies. However, the distribution of this new affluence was very uneven. While profiteers made their fortunes the ordinary man had to suffer hardships and shortages and now begun to demand his share. The pressure, full of moral indignation was put upon the governments to channel the wealth toward the common good.

The young generation of architects responded to this challenge with enthusiasm and a feeling of responsibility. The classical idiom was in their eyes ideally suited to the task of just social distribution of aesthetical experience. It made possible to express in the same aesthetic language the new opulent residence of the newly rich and a modest home of the worker. It would restrain the first and dignify the other. In this way the classical architecture become an expression of the social renewal and justice.

New architecture was in the air, and it was classical !

This new architectural wind blowing over Scandinavia was blowing from Germany. There from the beginning of the century the movement articulated through Der Deutsche Verkbund, rejecting the idiosyncrasies of National Romanticism or Secession's extravaganza in favor of return to the simplicity of the work well done. While Bauhaus which also had its roots in Verkbund, moved from this ideal in the direction of mechanistic, dehumanized art, the new Classicism seeked instead to the Grand Tradition, which as indicated by the above quotation, was by no means dead or forgotten.

This common European tradition built upon aesthetical absolutes expressed through mathematical ratios, has by its universality and rationality become for the young an epitome of the end to the nationalist sentiments which they held responsible for the Great War. In their eyes it was as if the darkness was giving way to light and reason. It supplied them a medium ideally suited as a unifying factor for the construction of a new world of justice, welfare and prosperity for all. We can see that in fact these goals were not different from those professed by Bauhaus and others of their kind. Although expressed in different idiom the new Classicism was neither indifferent or incompatible with the needs of modern industrial society. On the contrary, as young architects argued in a newspaper debate in Norway when the older generation accused them of the alleged aridity of their works, the new architecture is as tailored to the demands of new technology as well as demands for light and air. Indeed, all these needs can easily be met by the possibilities inherent in the classical system. Just consider, it is an architecture which so well gives expression to the post and beam system, a system which when applied to concrete or steel, the symbols of new world, has became the the hottest technical novelty of that era. By its formal clarity and technical possibilities, the post and beam system allows for light and air, again the symbols of the new. All this was stressed by the main spokesman for the young generation, the brilliant architect Gudolf Blakstad who also emphasized the other qualities of classical architecture such as rationality and objective character of its aesthetics. Ironically, these two last qualities were also ones that were the most cherished by the early modernists. In our times it was Quinlan Terry who insisted on the practicality of the classical tradition, for instance the possibility of hiding all technology in beams and pilasters, something that was tested in Oslo by the present writer.

It is possible to distinguish two main strains within the Nordic Classicism of the twenties. Swedes and to some degree Finns operated in somewhat lighter, even frivolous manner than their Danish and Norwegians colleges whose architecture tended to be more correct and monumental, f.inst. Police Headquarters in Copenhagen or Norwegian Bank in Oslo. This more easy Swedish approach entered under the term of 'Swedish grace' the vocabulary of architectural history. Danes and Norwegians, though as mentioned before kept more to the book, also were full of joy and creative ease combined with elegance and maestry of style. In Norway it was the first and only time of true architectural maturity.

However, this honeymoon of classical tradition and modernity did not last. Whole mental climate of the epoch was against it. Modernity as ideology based on time and change could not accept the aesthetics of the timeless. The Norwegian Academy of Architects in Oslo established in 1923 to provide a thorough classical education, did exist no more then couple of years. Already in the middle of the decade some architects, notably Lars Backer, started the campaign in favor of the 'new, objective (sic)' architecture. While a tour to Holland, organized by Norwegian Architect Association in 192~, to study this new manner, spelled the classical tradition's decline, with the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 the new style's victory seemed final. The apostasy of a leading Scandinavian star, that fine classical architect, Gunnar Asplund, has marked the point. It is significant that most of classical architects painlessly converted to the new fashion. It shows that real objectives were not that different. That the new classicism developed during that time could serve the modern society perfectly well in contradiction to the claim from one of the governmental advisors to the effect that the modern democratic welfare state demands modernist architecture, as if the social justice and happiness depended on ugliness of the industrial wasteland. In this context the modernist architecture shows itself for what it is, an extremist perversion of human dreams and aspirations which prevailed over moderation and civility of the previous tradition which would inevitably have created a very different world indeed.

In the issue of A&C we intend to present some of the best examples of this Nordic tradition from its time of blooming as well as some of the present efforts towards its revival, especially from Sweden and Norway.