White Bricks I

This couple fell for a falling building, aquired it for land value, and proceeded with the original architects help “restoring it exactly like it was built.” When asked why, he looks nonplussed. “Why would we change something when 50-plus years later it functions beautifully and is part of the architect’s vision? We don’t want the house to look like every other house,” he says, “because it never did.”

“It’s probably a little nutty,” Mandolene admits, reflecting on their insistence on pure preservation (about 75% was salvaged). And yet, he adds, “people think that this style of architecture doesn’t deserve to be landmarked because it’s not old enough, but it is part of architectural history, and it’s slowly disappearing.

1957, Arthur Witthoefft

As one of the comments say "a man and his young son walked by (presumably from a neighboring McMansion). Someone overheard the father say to the son, "Some people like this kind of stuff."

from dwell

New England goes Scandinavian

While the pre-fabricated New England-style of living sometimes seen in this part of the world seemsquite despicable, I feel a certain ambiguety towards these tract houses. They are, after all, not to different from the scandinavian wooden cottages of the 60's and 70's, with their their wooden construction, lack of ornamentaion, and ´fresh´ floor plans. Re-designing them should not be too dificult, as proved below.

According to the article in dwell, the characteristic split-levels of these houses are becoming increasingly passé - and often removed, so a decision was made to preserve - “because the split-level is an original type that represents a significant time in the history of North American housing, the postwar building boom.” 

A further nod to scandinavian architecure can be seen in the black-stained wood, danish furniture and light interiors.

Great concrete floors as well.

Summer House by Henry Nielsen

After digging around on the background of my former post I found another home for sale on Skeppsholmen real estates, by an architect named Henry Nielsen. Hmmm... This summerhouse on the island of Värmdö carries the traits of 60's/70's scandinavian architecture, but having been built 1991, furniture and some detail, such as bathrooms and kitchen, do not hold up to the greater architectural standard of the rest of the house. It is, however, excellently planned - and with the right design-mind (me), the interiors could be made as stunning as the rest of the house.

Henry Haubro-Nielsen's Family Home and Office

House of architect Henry Haubro-Nielsen (unknown to me) was recently sold to swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt, I found out while googling the architect's name. These pictures were taken from Skeppsholmen real estate agent's site.

This is a true gem of Scandinavian 60's architecture - down to every detail - and I hope the Persbrandt family will keep the original details wherever possible. It's what honesty in materials is all about. Gotta love that jute-rug too.

DN, SvD

Lange Production (L) Funkis

Lange Production goes the opposite way by shooting their promotional photos in what looks to be a beautiful apartment/villa in  typical Scandinavian "Funkis" (functionalist) style, which obviously goes very well with Preben Fabricius and Joergen Kastholm's furniture. This looks alot more like my apartment, though I would really like to have my windowframes in wood like in these photos. Mine are unfortunately painted white.

Three things:

*That is a beautiful glass vase in the first picture (where's it from?), and

*The candleholder in the third picture is a design by Danish funtionalist architect Mogens Lassen named "Kubus". It must be a vintage piece, because the newly produced ones from by Lassen uunfortunately only come in black or white.

*My grandfather, who owned a stone quarry, would replace the stone on the window panes in his office with granit of his choice. Looks like the same thing has been done here. I also question the originality of the stone on the fireplace. Beautifully done, anyway.

Lange Production