Nordic Classicism is a rather inconvenient period in the history of twentieth-century architecture. The century was dominated by the emergence of the Modern Movement after the First World War and by its global acceptance after the Second World War. In tracing the roots of Modernism, it was long accepted that it emerged as a natural development from the various Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, National Romantic and Jugendstil Movements, following their rejection of the nineteenth century’s favoured Gothic and Classical stylistic revivals. The Modern Movement was seen to have continued this search for an alternative, original architectural approach that was more suited to the new and very different needs of the industrialized and industrializing Western nations.
In the Scandinavian countries, the late nineteenth-century radical artistic spirit found its expression in the National Romantic Movement – as in other countries, this was partly a rejection of historical revivalism; partly a reaction against increasing industrialization with a corresponding desire to return to a perceived purer, simpler pre-industrial life; partly a renewed interest in regional vernacular architecture, and also a genuine search for a new architecture, more suited to the spirit and needs of the age. The quality of the best architecture of the Nordic National Romantic Movement was as high as the best of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, French or Belgium Art Nouveau, or Austrian Jugendstil. Indeed National Romanticism was accepted more fully in the Scandinavian societies than any similar architectural movement was in any other part of Europe, resulting in an unusually high number of major public buildings in the National Romantic style being carried out throughout the Scandinavian countries.
And yet we find this renewed interest in Classical architecture emerging in Scandinavia in the early part of the twentieth century, not just running in parallel with National Romanticism, but eventually almost entirely replacing it throughout the region from around 1910 to around 1930.
Its acceptance, soon after its emergence, was almost immediate – from workers housing to new parliament buildings; we find not only the architects of the region inspired by Classicism once more but also their clients and the public, enthusiastically greeting their new buildings (an achievement which has rarely been repeated, nor even aspired to by many architects since). Far from a consistent journey therefore from National Romanticism to Modernism, it represents an apparent break – a backward look – a wrong turning or an unexpected distraction from the development of Modernism.
For many historians and architects of the Modern Movement, Nordic Classicism is therefore an embarrassing interlude. As the Finnish architect, Professor Simo Paavilainen, put it so well: ‘Nordic architecture has forced itself into the formula imposed by the international history of architecture, like Cinderella’s stepsister, who cut off her heel to make the glass shoe of modernism fit’.1 Many historians have almost entirely dismissed the importance of Nordic Classicism such as Nils Erik Wickberg, who in his book Finnish Architecture suggests that ‘the 1920s were characterized by a subdued atmosphere: it was a period of relative calm between two periods of vigorous creative activity’ and ‘the historical significance of the classicism of the 1920s may lie principally in the fact that it paved the way for the coming Modernism, the functionalism of the future, for, with its cubiform shapes and restrained ornamentation, it was more prosaic and precise than the architecture of the previous decade’.2 For architects, such as Alvar Aalto and Eric Bryggman, this early classical period of their careers was consistently excluded from their later lectures and publications, as it was in such contrast to their subsequent modern work. As Aalto’s biographer Goran Schildt revealed, ‘it is symptomatic that in presentations of his work he systematically ignores his extensive Neo-Classical output of the 1920’s and starts directly with his Functionalist breakthrough. One gets the impression that he wished to obliterate everything in his life which contrasted with the lofty role of master he had gradually come to assume.’3
Far from being an embarrassing secret, however, the quality of the best Nordic Classical architecture from this period is extremely high – its key buildings not only all remain in use but continue to be much loved and highly valued by their owners, users and communities, who have lovingly restored almost every one of them in recent decades. This architectural movement is increasingly being recognized as having had an importance and originality of its own – in successfully responding to Nordic national and international aspirations, in combining richness of ideas with restraint and subtlety in execution, in celebrating so effectively the purpose of each building and, most importantly, in creating humane and beautiful settings in which to live, learn, work, debate, study and reflect.
This book is both an introduction to this fascinating, if brief, architectural period and a celebration of its greatest achievements.