IN THE POLITICAL
LABY RINTH
Adolf Hitler observes the scenery on board the Deutschland in the Norwegian fjords, April 1934
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"Break with the past in terms of architecture, or in terms of how we plan?" Tina Lam asks.
The bombing of Kristiansund was carried out by bombers from the German fighting force which started on the morning of 28 April 1940 and lasted for four days until 1 May. After the bombing, large parts of the city were completely damaged.
Today, beauty is the expression of individual personality; in earlier times, it was the expression of human ideals. Yet, one intuitively feels beauty is a timeless quality that is often found in traditional buildings, rather than mass-produced concrete blocks. Fewer, often architects and engineers, find it in mass-produced concrete blocks. It comes down to whether or not they stand the test of time and change in politics. For example, when the German Chancellor visited Norway in 1934, few anticipated that Norway would later be occupied and reconstructed.
German battleships continued to sail into Norwegian waters that spring and summer, much to King Haakon VII's displeasure. Yet;
“No amount of protest from the king could turn back the German battleships and warplanes that invaded Norway six years later. […] Within hours Germans had seized control of major coastal towns. King Haakon VII and the Norwegian Government refused the German demand that they surrender, escaping from Oslo into the interior of the country and eventually to Tromsø in the North; from there, they left for England and exile.” (Stratigakos, 2020, p. 5)
Hitler's Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway, explores the actions of Nazi occupiers in Norway and the internal disputes between Albert Speer and Norwegian architect Sverre Pedersen. Norway was seen as part of the Germanic racial destiny, and the Lebensborn project was established to unify the Aryan people. German soldiers were moved in, and the Lebensborn project was established, encouraging Norwegian women to have children with German men. Norwegian orphans with Nordic characteristics were moved in semi-secret to Germany for adoption, and unlike Eastern Europe, it was intended for Germans to settle in Norway without eradication or genocide of the native population. A large network of barracks and communities was planned, so ambitious that wood from Sweden had to be imported. The barracks were Nordic and wood-based, with traditional and functionally modern designs. Soldiers' homes were designed to disconnect people from their non-German surroundings, meanwhile, the common areas included canteens, pub restaurants, reading rooms, craft rooms, a billiard hall, bowling alleys, and auditoriums.(Stratigakos, 2020, p. 130) The ambition of the project reflects an empiric intention akin to the Roman tradition of the pomerium "the ‘first boundary’ marked by the Romans and their first invention on the territory.” (Carlà, 2015, p. 599) However, the ordering of functions can on reflection be associated with the later extensions of the pomerium, in which the communal functions outside of the religious boundary of Rome were flipped to the inside during medieval times. The destruction of urban centres during Norway's conquest provided the Nazis with the opportunity to erect entire towns, beginning with street layouts and reaching architectural details. (NRK, 2011) However, it also demonstrates an inconsistency; they worshipped Nordic authenticity yet surpassed previous buildings with a redefining science of National Socialism. With no intention of restoring or reconstructing local buildings, they started from scratch with modern designs fit for private motorcars, parades, and control.
The war has here come to the church land in Kristiansund. After the ravages of the Nazis in the period 28 April to 1 May 1940, large parts of the city lie in ruins.
Photograph of a National Socialist mural in the soldiers’ home (barracks-cum-settlement) in Kristiansand. Artwork depicts patriotic staples in a lifeless monumental style.
Auditorium at Kristiansand soldiers' home.
"All road lead to Berlin": the cover oof the inaugural issue of Deutche Monatshefte in Norwegen, published in November 1940.
Photograph of a National Socialist mural in the soldiers’ home (barracks-cum-settlement) in Kristiansand. Artwork depicts patriotic staples in a lifeless monumental style.
Pedersen's reconstruction plans were influenced by the English garden-city movement and Le Corbusier's functionalism, focusing on open spaces, greenery, sunlight, facilities, and road beltways. However, the reconstruction of churches at the end of the road axis was not approved due to the functionalistic Nazis' preference for state buildings. Instead, town halls, post offices, and telegraph offices were built, integrating monitoring and censorship. The new designs aimed to shift Norwegians away from individualism towards a communal ideal, promoting equality, economic prosperity, and symbolic recognition. (Stratigakos, 2020, p. 130)
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In 1940, Pedersen led the organisation 'The Regulation of Burnt Places', aiming to create a city inspired by the English garden-city movement and Le Corbusier's functionalism. The aim was to lead Norwegians away from the previous era's "emphatic individualism" towards a communal ideal, promoting equality, economic prosperity, and symbolic recognition. (Stratigakos, 2020, p. 130) The large parading streets and grid-like structures are clear influences from Speer's plans for the Great Germanium. However, Speer and his master never anticipated their empire would be quickly reduced to ruins and treated with veneration, like Imperial Rome. The hastily built structures, like The Kongresshalle of the Thousand Year Reich, have suffered from damp plaster and are only used as parking lots for the past few years. (Katz, 2019) Almost half a century after Nazism's official end, there is no unanimity about how to deal with the sites most holy to it, where the state buildings planned in Norwegian cities were exchanged for churches. (NRK, 2011) Most of Pedersen's plans were carried out after the war with minor alterations. Why exactly, like many other plans, they were not lost to the war, is a compelling question; how were these classical grid systems, popular in both the Imperial and Nazi regimes, still retained in a functional postwar era where Norway sought to differentiate themselves from the classical architecture adopted by the Soviet Union?
The office of Sverre Pedersen, in which plans for the burned towns were developed.
The office of Sverre Pedersen, in which plans for the burned towns were developed.
As classical architecture is often linked to fascistic ideals, Hardy and Flemming both argue it should not as modern star architects like Le Corbusier's were said to sympathise with their ideals. (Williamson 2015) Yet, one scarcely deems modern architecture are fascist. However, even though it was possible for Norway to turn to the Soviet Union after the war, they instead turned toward the Western allies and became inspired by modern mass production. This shift allowed for the quick reconstruction of cities and the creation of a new identity for the nation. (Norgeshistorie and Institutt for arkeologi n.d.) The values embodied in structures during occupation remained as reminders, and modernism during the reconstruction period helped Norway establish a new era of social democracy and welfare, particularly following the discovery of oil in 1969.
POUNDBURY
Norway's prosperity may have led to a shift in architectural styles, but the association with certain styles remained a contentious issue for decades. In contrast to the UK, where buildings damaged during the Blitz were rebuilt, Norway's response to historical reconstructions may be stronger and less receptive. This raises the question of whether design can be separated from the ideologies that shape it. It is a question familiar to Léon Krier, a renowned urban planner, who made a name for himself studying Speer. “To the question ‘Can a war criminal be a great artist?’”, he said in an interview, “my answer is clearly yes”. (Moore, 2018) Léon Krier argues that architecture should be pluralistic and open to debates, as depicted in his sketches published in his 1998 book Architecture: Choice or Fate, however, he also asserts that classical and traditional architecture are continuously labelled with fascist moralities. To prove his blameless like the Nazi architect, Albert Speer, Krier wrote a book about him. This would be a minor, unimportant point if Krier had not been one of the key architectural advisors to King Charles III for the traditionalist development of Poundbury in Dorset.
Defending architecture's political neutrality is challenging in times of warfare. Krier may not be a fascist nor is modernist architecture more than an art historical style, despite their practical and economical promises. Incorporating values like openness and democracy into glass structures does not provide a promise, nor will mass production necessarily lead to better cities. During King Charles III’s tenure as Duke of Cornwall, His Majesty used principles of urban and rural planning from his book, A Vision of Britain, when co-designing the urban extension of Dorchester, preventing it from becoming merely another conventional development. (Poundbury n.d.) The Architecture Uprising compares Poundbury frequently to developments in Oslo, remarking, “The hope is that in the future one can invest more in site development of this type, so that more people can afford to move to such places." (@aonorge 2021) However, the battle for collective memory comes in more forms than simply resentment towards classical buildings. It even appears as a fight to preserve a brutalist building's collective memory.
Folket bør få bestemme hvordan byen skal
se ut
The people should be allowed to decide what the city should look like
