RANALD LAWRENCE

Building On The Horizon

The Architecture of Sverre Fehn
 Sverre Fehn is an architect who conjures up many
problems. His work survives quite stubbornly in the world
of post-modernity in which we live today, quietly
subverting a contemporary international scene of skin,
events and situation in architecture, where to build can
seemingly no longer hold integrity in its own right. The
structural repetition and ordering of his architecture harks
back to the age of heroic modernism, and a rationality and
honesty in tectonics promoted by Kenneth Frampton. In
many ways his work is incompatible with the modern age
of scenography, and yet Fehn still remains relevant, for his
observations make him susceptible to an analysis that is
entirely contemporary, and he remains often quoted by
architects and critics alike.

Sverre Fehn was born in Kongsberg, Norway, in

1924 and graduated from the Oslo School in the late 1940s.
He came into contact with CIAM through J�RN UTZON,
ALDO VAN EYCK and ALISON and PETER SMITHSON,
but could not afford to travel to CIAM's meetings himself.
He was, however, awarded a scholarship to study in Paris
under the guidance of JEAN PROUV�, where he would go
and watch LE CORBUSIER working in his studio when it
was opened up for students in the evening. Le Corbusier's
and later LOUIS KAHN's architecture was a type of
modernism that Fehn appreciated for its formal purity,
honesty, and simplicity, seeking only to reunify
architecture with human experience, time and shadow
(important themes for Fehn), in the fundamental spirit of
SIEGFRIED GIEDION's philosophy.

It is important for this essay to define what

modernism is, and also discuss what defines the post-
modernity we find ourselves in now, in order to know what
it is Fehn is often challenging. In his seminal essay,
Building, Dwelling, Thinking, HEIDEGGER talks about the
'fourfold' nature of existence, as to be "'on the earth' already
means 'under the sky'. Both of these also mean 'remaining
before the divinities' and include a 'belonging to men's
being with one another'. By a primal oneness the four -
earth and sky, divinities and mortals - belong together in
one"1

He goes on to define each of the four and their

relationships to each other: the earth blossoms to give life,
the sky defines weather, time, and existence, and mortals
come between the two, while all three owe their existence
to the divinities. In a sense when Fehn refers to the earth,
the horizon and the sky, he defines a threefold, where the
horizon, the space between (in Norwegian, Mellomrom) is
metaphorically the realm of man. According to GENNARO
POSTIGLIONE "Fehn attempted to provide 'a horizon for
man,' so that each project might identify a place in space
between earth and sky".2
 The Dream of the North Modern Norway is a
relatively young country. Prior to 1814, Norway was ruled
from Denmark in what became popularly referred to in the
National Romantic period as 'the four-hundred year night',
and in many ways the works of national heroes such as
IBSEN, GRIEG and MUNCH reflect a search for a new
national identity. Their cause was strengthened by a
blossoming new language� In the second half of the 19th
century, IVAR AASEN, immortalised by Fehn in his Ivar
Aasen Centre near �rsta, received a grant from the
Norwegian Government to record the varying dialects of
the different regions of Norway. His work led to the
creation of a 'new' language based on Old Norse: NyNorsk.
Today the population is divided between the forward
looking Bokm�l (Danish derived) speaking populace of
the south east of the country, and the more traditional
regional dialect and NyNorsk speaking people of the west
coast and Fjordlands.

The vernacular building tradition in Norway is

known as byggeskikk. Its practice varies with climatic
region and has evolved through history, though there are
common features such as hewn log houses with precisely
notched corner details to protect against the driving wind
and rain. The introduction of other characteristics such as
weatherboarding did not in fact occur until the 18th
century, and projecting roofs, verandas and decorative
gables are features of the sveitserstil, or Swiss Chalet Style,
popular among the National Romantics of the 19th century
who sought to create a history of self sufficiency and myth
based on the Swiss ideal.

NORBURG SCHULZ argues, "even today, the

Norwegians are urban dwellers who are nevertheless
incapable of relating to urban traditions. The idea of self-
sufficiency remains, and with it, the distrust of those who
claim to be more proficient in specialized areas", such as
architecture. And so the problem modernism had to
overcome in Norway was one of psyche: "the
individualistic, 'self-sufficiency' that Ibsen characterised in
Peer Gynt. Such psychological characteristics are linked to
a traditional way of life, preserved on isolated farms where
the farmers were also once the architects of buildings"3 (fig.
1). In short it is a very existential life to be a Norwegian.

Heidegger and Fehn Fehn writes to clarify his own

thinking. For him, the simpler life is an inextricable part of
what it means to be Norwegian. Even today the Norwegian
landscape is scattered with little huts and cottages that
people retreat to for a few weeks every summer. Seeking to
reunify architecture with human experience, time and
shadow, Fehn describes the vernacular architecture of
Africa as, "A very simple way of building: a modest cube in
a desert, a little door and perhaps a window, maybe a date
palm beside it, and that is all. It is a fantastic story about
human life".4
 In Africa we can find both Le Corbusier's rooftop
terraces and Kahn's simple sculptural concrete forms. Thus
for Sverre Fehn modernism is not a creation but a
discovery, and so new modernism, today's signature glass
and metal abstract style, is an impostor.

In the Hedmark Cathedral Museum in Hamar,

Fehn seeks to dissect history and rationalise it for people to
view in a single afternoon. On his work he reflects that:
"The past is suddenly present, the stones come
close to you, the ruins look more material and more real,
because they make up a story at the same time as they are
attacked. I am sick of the sentimental way of dealing with
these matters. On the other hand, if you look at my (other)
buildings and their surroundings, you can easily see that I
have tried to preserve every single tree. It is a love-hate
story."5

It would seem then that in as much as he accepts

the responsibility of making the decision of what to destroy
and what to preserve, Fehn belongs to the existential school
of thought of the followers of Heidegger. One of his
favourite stories involves walking in the Norwegian
landscape:
"When you go to untouched nature, you always
cause some destruction, if only by stepping on grass. The
traces of your footsteps lead the next man to follow the
same route. The footsteps are a kind of architecture,
because they mediate the walker's feeling for the landscape,
telling the follower which view pleases him."6

It may be suggested that most of Giedion's

philosophical differences with Heidegger arise from
whether the mystical part of his foursome is one that is
reconcilable with the others. But rather than arguing that
case, perhaps it is more constructive to consider that, in the
twentieth century, the divinities ceased to have the
importance of the other three. This perhaps gives us a
philosophical definition of modernism, the product of
modernity, born out of the death of astrology and the birth
of astronomy, where there is no longer a structured
cosmological way of thinking about architecture, rather a
body of thinking that considers history and precedent
instead. Architecture becomes rooted in the earth and exists
outside the celestial sphere, and so there is no longer a
higher reality, only an immanent reality. In that sense,
modernism is the practice of architecture in the absence of
the divinities.

Many intellectuals have sought to define and

explain the rut into which the western tradition has got
itself. Kenneth Frampton particularly has often expressed
concern for the state of "tectonic culture". In his writing he
has consistently advocated a search for authenticity to be
achieved through tectonic expression, and has cited Fehn
as being an exemplar of an architect who has done this
through the expression of "critical regionalism".

It must be said also that Fehn is a topographic

architect. The first question he asks of any site is where to
put a building. Villa Busk, situated partly in a disused
quarry, is an example of a walk in the landscape to find a
spot to build, a Heideggerian methodology which is the
opposite of a systematically produced plan. His buildings
take on a mediating role in the life of their users: Villa Busk
mediates between the journey to town and work outside
the front door and the journey to the pier and fjord - nature
- through the back. The Glacier Museum very elementally
carries the visitor to the glacier and the glacier down to the
visitor. At Hamar the path the visitor takes is a sign to
follow (fig. 2).

In Building, Dwelling, Thinking, Heidegger

discusses the example of a bridge as something that defines
the landscape, for "The banks emerge as banks only as the
bridge crosses the stream. The bridge designedly causes
them to lie across from each other� The bridge gathers the
earth as landscape around the stream."7

According to Heidegger, as a construction the

bridge causes the fourfold to come into existence at that
point.8 This appears to be a slightly different proposition to
what Fehn suggests: that it is the mortal who by walking
through the landscape causes views of the earth and the
sky. For Fehn the act of arriving at the site of the bridge then
creates architecture, not just the bridge's siting in itself.8

So there is a subtle but stark disagreement between

Fehn and Heidegger in the nature of reality, and existence
today in the absence of a higher meaning. While Fehn may
be nostalgic for a time when architecture had its place in
culture without the need to search for a place in history, he
accepts that "if you look at the material in the dimension of
time, walls belong to history, the tree is fleeting and belongs
to eternity"9.

Architects often struggle to build in the context of

past culture. At Hamar, Fehn demonstrates competence.
Rather than treating historical precedent as a limitation to
be kept at arm's length, he engages with the past and
exploits it to the advantage of the present. According to
FRANCESCO DAL CO, this "modus operandi implies
patience and meticulousness� �The passing of time frees
each artifact from time; the museum forces them to take on
new lives, imposes the presence of a new space, and dares
to give them new meanings"10.

Dal Co suggests that, "Brought to light, exhibited

and displayed, each object has its own tranquility
violated"11. In other words, for Fehn, if a creation is to have
a legitimate place in history it must reveal its worth in the
context of what has come before, stand up to the test of
time, and engage with the past in a manner that adds to its
profundity.

Fehn and Modernism Fehn's ideals as an architect

are apparent when he reflects on the history of his own
movement, modernism. He argues that the principles of
modernism "are based on the understanding of the
quotidian, not as a static vernacular unity but as a
relationship of human and natural forces". This was to be
achieved by the "abolition of perspective and of the
disjunction between subject and object that had dominated
Western theory and practice ever since DESCARTES.
According to Giedion, the objective was to repair the
'schism between thought and emotion', and to lead
humanity to interact with the modern world"12.

And Dal Co dismisses a straightforward

acknowledgement to Heidegger in Fehn's philosophy: "The
questions that Fehn repeatedly asks himself and whispers
to those who read his architecture are expressed in the
language that he has mastered: planning and construction,
inseparable, indispensable to each other. It is difficult to
overlook the fact that these questions - in a language not
accessible to everyone - do not offer any comfort, since, in
a general sense, they are not meant to be the praises of the
familiar genius loci, nor do they attempt to represent the
positive architectonic representation of some passages in
Heidegger."13

Are we then to believe that Fehn is trying to express

something negative in how he builds? Or a feeling of
nostalgia? His reply is ambivalent: "Science has bereaved
people of belief in the heavenly kingdom (...) The religion
of the present day is the denial of death. So, objects are not
allowed to die either, but are preserved."14

For Fehn, humanity's logic today dictates that

"ruins should not be ruined further, but should keep their
present condition to the end of the world"15. He argues that
to build on land without acknowledging the concept of the
sea is to build within the limitations of the hills, physical
objects or known world around, for "in the flat world, to
build became a discovery of scale within a given scale. The
secret of the boat was to fight the horizon"16.

Sverre Fehn's architectural thinking is extremely

intuitive; he is of a generation where the distinctions
between personal identity and that of the nation are more
closely entwined than is usual elsewhere. Seemingly
everything in Norway has been constructed out of the
vernacular language of the church or house, regardless of
scale, function, or location. Whereas there are several
notable modern architects of Sweden and Finland that
came to be representative of a wider international style, for
example ASPLUND and AALTO, Norway has had no such
recognition. There is an unfulfilled dream of an
international identity that cannot be established because of
a fear of losing the comfort, safety and 'freedom' of spirit
afforded by the vernacular. It has been said of Fehn that he
is a typical example of what could be termed a 'Critical
Regionalist', a Nordic SIZA, as it were.

Both Fehn and Siza explore the idea of arrival,

mediation between the body and landscape, and boundary.
Compare for example Siza's pools at Le�a and the
Hedmark Museum at Hamar. Both have a clearly
delineated path to follow; at Le�a the visitor emerges from
the subterranean changing room into a small courtyard and
eventually up a flight of steps cast as an extension of the
earth to the pool that is tiled and smooth, belonging to man.
At Hamar "'The suspended museum' has been created, and
this makes it possible to be in a position to understand
history - not with the aid of pages of a book - but as it
appears in the world of archaeology."17

Consider also Siza's Boa Nova Teahouse, nestled

comfortably within the crags of Le�a beach, "affirming
itself by re-affirming the landscape"18. From the inside, the
line of the low hanging eaves perfectly matches the horizon
of the sea, just as the parapet of the viewing terrace at
Fehn's Glacier Museum implies the horizon behind the
mountains.
 Compare this with the main corridor that accesses
all of the communal family spaces at Fehn's Villa Busk: here
on one side are the rooms bounded by the concrete wall,
and on the other side is timber structure, a series of
perfectly modulated columns following the trees beyond.
As Fehn explains, "The straight lines of poetry are found in
the concrete mass' confrontation with the mountain, and
the regular rhythm of wooden pillars is slipped down into
the earth like responses to the static slide-rule of the roof
construction."19

This is an architecture of addition, subtraction and

extension, metaphors of rock-coast and tree-column slip
from the tongue so easily that "More than a mere external
observation point, the landscape is itself a living space".20

While, however, Fehn's style may be that of a

'Critical Regionalist' in Frampton's terms, he never allows
himself to meander into the relative post-modernity of the
rather kitsch undertones to be found in Siza's later and
more arbitrary forms. His compositional method seems, on
the contrary, to be based on principles that refer back to
another era: structural repetition and rationality, the
extruded section, the emphasis on the drama of how
structure takes the load.
 The Extruded Section Three of Sverre Fehn's most
recent new-build museums have all taken the approximate
form of an extruded section. The Glacier Museum at
Fj�rland, the Kjell Aukrust Centre in Alvdal and the Ivar
Aasen Centre all offer a similar environmental strategy,
allowing light in at a high level to light exhibits or books
below. Of these only the Ivar Aasen Centre is insulated
outside the structural envelope, thus including the
reinforced concrete shell inside the volume to be
environmentally controlled. It is no coincidence that this is
also the only one of the three buildings where it is
important to maintain similar temperature and humidity
levels at all times, due to its working, cataloguing and
archival functions.

So Fehn builds in a manner that is sensitive both to

function and climate, but also, like Aalto before him, he
does not consider it absolutely necessary to follow rigidly
the purest modernist interpretation of the adage "form
follows function". In Fehn's buildings, the structure is
always apparent in the form, like a skeleton, but it is always
modestly clothed, in flesh and skin as it were, appearing
like a ribcage beneath the surface (fig. 3).

Making Architecture from the dramatisation of

Structure and Joint One of Fehn's earliest works is the
Nordic Pavilion at the 1962 Venice Biennale, a double layer
of concrete girders supported on a single giant concrete
beam that "provide an atmosphere of the 'shadowless'
world of Scandinavia"21. Kenneth Frampton places this
'development' in tectonic form within the framework of
architects such as SIGURD LEWERENTZ, ERNESTO
ROGERS, ANGELO MANGIAROTTI, FRANCO ALBINI,
and GINO VALLE.22 He then cites the title of REYNER
BANHAM's The New Brutalism of 1966 as a convenient
rubric through which this work has been classified.

'Brutalist', however, seems a misleading

characterisation to be applied to the greater part of what
Fehn sought to achieve. In Thought of Construction, PER
OLAF FJELD describes Fehn's belief that "For the young
architect each material is a measurement of strength. To
apply the material to its ultimate capacity is natural for
youth With time certain architects will accept age as
evidence of a tiredness which has a beauty of its own,
allowing raw material a dimension of life and wisdom."23

And so as Fehn has matured his work has moved

away from a more primitive expression of load in concrete
to something far more subtle and reliant on craftsmanship
and a Scandinavian tradition of modernism that is neither
brutalist nor truly belonging to any global movement;
rather it is an 'other' architecture of invention and
adaptation - and deserves to be considered in its own right,
independent from the 'style' of the time. The fashionable
nature of the Venice Pavilion is unfortunate in that it is a
distraction from the real moral message of Fehn's work that
demands not that it cannot be compared with other
architects' work of the time, but that it cannot be aligned
with it.

At the Hedmark Museum in Hamar, a new timber

roof is constructed to perch on top of the ruins of the old
nineteenth century barn, protecting the excavations under
its floor. Here, the structure is again massive, but rather
than being over-engineered to test the material to its
structural limit as in Venice, the structure is made up of
many timber laminate trusses that are simply over-
engineered to express strength and permanence. Fehn
appears to have matured. However, strange things do still
appear to be happening. At the conclusion to the
auditorium space in Hamar, the last truss is slightly shifted
off axis so that one rafter reaches out to rest above the end
wall, supported on a glulam column that descends to the
exit door, where it rests upon a beam supported by two
more columns either side of the door (fig 4).

At the Cangrande Space in Castelvecchio SCARPA

employs two beams (resting almost perpendicularly in plan
on other beams that extend out of the end of the old
barracks underneath each eave) to support steel carriages
that in turn hold the giant double ridge beam above them.
One of these two beams is set at a slight angle in defiance
of the dominant geometry in order to "acknowledge the
inequalities in the severing of the two walls"24 that used to
make up the last bay of the barracks. If we compare this
with Fehn's treatment of the end of the barn it is clear he too
is acknowledging the non-orthogonal geometry of the ruins
he is building around, emphasising what has been added
almost as a work of archaeology and display rather than
merely a rain barrier. For Fehn there is a story behind all
structure: "The starting point for the design of every
building should be based on a poetic construction. In other
words: if the story we choose to call architecture has no
structure, it is useless discussing it with an engineer, for the
structure is not something to be added afterwards. It cannot
be calculated in figures. It is included in the story an
architect tells about people and life, the basis of the
story."25

The Poetics of Construction "The use of a given

material should never happen by choice or calculation, but
only through intuition and desire. The construction accords
the material in its opening towards light, a means of
expressing its inherent colour."26

Through Per Olaf Fjeld, Sverre Fehn states his belief

in the intrinsic virtue of the unadulterated use of material
in the vernacular, with a grasp for mass and size that does
not seek to cause unease but to reassure. This is what is
missing from the work of Siza, and what is present in Fehn's
extruded section forms. The function of each individual
piece in the construction can be read, and in turn serves to
convey how the whole building stands.

In the Auditorium of the Ivar Aasen Centre, there

is a single steel I-beam used to support glulam rafters that
span across the roof (fig. 5). Rather than having this steel
beam held by the concrete walls of the auditorium, Fehn
articulates its function by exposing the point of load
transfer onto a reinforced concrete pillar that stretches up
from the protective shell around the bank of seats, that is
separated from the wall by an access passage on either side.

Discussing reinforced concrete and glulam, Fjeld

narrates Fehn's belief that "The relationship of concrete and
steel is dependent, since each material alone lacks sufficient
strength. With the advent of glue the tree's tectonic size is
totally transformed and wood itself becomes a substance.
Its colour remains naturally determined, but its dimension
becomes artificial and unlimited - mystery no longer
resides."27

There seems to be a melancholic sentiment in what

Fehn says, for while structure can now be as minimal as the
technology one can afford to build it with, "the safety
margin of wood and stone construction which had inspired
our structural creativity are totally displaced by the concept
of inertia."28 Whilst in this case the concrete column by
itself and in its own sheer shape presumably could not
support the steel beam without its reinforcement, there is at
least an attempt to once again reunify material with
purpose and size, held up and displayed for us to see, and
thereby feel secure.

Form SIR LESLIE MARTIN was fascinated by the

opportunities afforded to expand and create new
architectural arrangements within an order of structure,
often an extruded section, employing new materials and
modernist principles as a means to an end and not an end
to a means.

Fehn uses this form and varies it in subtle

progressions as it runs in order to accommodate the
program inside. In the Aukrust Centre, various peninsula-
like projections house darker and more intimate exhibition
spaces, and at the Glacier Museum, an extruded section is
expanded upon by a cylindrical theatre at the end nearest
the entrance, and opposite it a glassy crystalline glacier-like
bulge houses the cafeteria (fig. 6). In the Ivar Aasen Centre
too, a lecture theatre projects out from the entrance, and at
the far end of the extruded section a library is housed
within a double height space carved into the plan. It is the
brain of the building, a place of intellectual compilation of
all that is published in the NyNorsk language, protected at
the heart of the construction (fig. 7).
 In his forward to Buildings & Ideas, a volume of the
work of Leslie Martin, TREVOR DANNATT praises the
extruded section: "It is concerned with the central ideas that
govern the way in which an architect works when he
designs a building. It emphasises a continuity of
composition as a principle but it clarifies differences and
recognises change."29

In as much as the problem is a complex and varied

program within the one symbolic whole, this would seem
to be a type of understanding that can be applied to Fehn
and his work.

Fehn also narrates the role of each element of the

construction; at Hamar, the new glulam columns to
support the roof sit neatly upon the old walls, and the
concrete 'streets'30 inside are in turn detached as a separate
construction from both the walls and the ceiling (fig. 8).
There is clarity of form and function; walls are a heavy
lateral shelter, roof is a screen to the sky: and this denotes
different architectonic principles and choices of material.

What we can conclude from this is that Fehn has

always been a 'modernist' in the original sense of the word,
and has continued to apply unadulterated 'modernist'
principles throughout his career, irrespective of the fleeting
fashions so attractive to his contemporaries. Today, when
the failure of various fleeting 'post modernist' -isms to
follow or improve upon the principles laid down by
modernism becomes increasingly apparent, it is clear that
the principled architecture of Fehn is one that tells a
continuous story through a period where continuity is hard
to find.

Fehn's Legacy "The first thing that you need to

know is that being unorthodox is not easy. Few are
committed to it and it is repaid with bitterness and solitude.
Obeying a single commandment, that of not consigning to
the darkness that which is seen in the light, this prerequisite
lends the faces of the unorthodox an unequivocal
harshness."31

These words of the Portuguese philosopher

EDUARDO LOUREN�O reveal a certain truth in relation
to the life of Sverre Fehn (who of course is preoccupied in a
much more literal sense with presenting things to the light).
His name joins a prodigious list of other European
architects who have sought to continue Frampton's tectonic
tradition long after the restless mainstream had apparently
confined it to the dustbin with the advent of "a Populism
whose ultimate aim is not to provide a liveable and
significant environment but rather to achieve a highly
photogenic form of scenography"32.

"It is clear that with the beginning of the twenty-

first century, technology has enabled architects to create
more and more obtuse atectonic33 constructions that
appear extremely dramatic in real life but more often also
in image form."

Frampton would have us remember, however, that

"the body reconstitutes the world through its tactile
appropriation of reality"34, and we must always be mindful
that our primary understanding of architecture is achieved
exactly by that, through the senses of the human body. As
Fehn observes, "Material can be something it is not J�rn
Utzon's Sydney Opera has an enormous weight, but its
expression is associated with the play of white canvas in the
wind. The mass is put into an order beyond its reach. It is
more than the material itself bespeaks."35

So perhaps there is room in architecture for

paradox in tectonics, but in Heideggerian terms, the
creation of place as opposed to space relies more on
Bauen36, that is to say construction with all its material and
realist tectonic implications (fig. 9), than on the
sophisticated 'decorated shed' or other irregular sculptural
shape.

But the honest exploration of tectonics is part of a

much older tradition than that of critical regionalism alone.
Tectonics usually implies an ordering system - and where
Fehn differentiates himself is in the skill he reveals in
employing the order subtly so as not to dominate to the
exclusion of human interaction. And how Fehn achieves
this is through his sensitivity to people and the horizon,
and their relationship to the earth and sky, through the
building on the horizon. He summarises Le Corbusier's
promise as such: "Give the earth back to itself. Let the
people in their individual homes own the horizon. Let the
apartment roof be the large piazza for the social interaction
for a visual conversation with the elements of the sky."37

But "Le Corbusier's final break with the foundation

wall and the column, as the only link between the earth and
man's dwelling", and the "undefined expanse" of the sky
that "overwhelmed the man on the terrace"38 led to a
situation where "In architectonic terms, we are the eternal
passers-by. We walk in and out of buildings and towns,
impressed by edifices and squares, but ourselves making
no impression."39

And so to float above the ground is to remove

oneself from human existence. Sverre Fehn is different in
that when he builds, like Siza, he seeks to root his
construction on the horizon to the earth (fig. 10). The
significance he places on site condition is revealed when he
suggests that only when "an architectural student has
learned about land-fall and the hill" is he "ready to express
the wall"40 (fig. 11). And when Fehn talks of the earth he
talks not only of the soil but also of man's past that is
invariably buried within it. In all of his later museums, the
Glacier Museum, the Kjell Aukrust Centre, and the Ivar
Aasen Centre, Fehn has included a fireplace (fig. 12), not
just a symbolic hearth but an expression of his "profound
unease with the spiritual and cultural consequences of
modern technology"41. Fehn laments the loss brought
about by new technology in terms of the bullet: "The bullet
made a dent in the surface of the earth, and the size of the
hole was the same as the bullet. Today's bullet has reached
the invisible mystery, as it can destroy all life without
rendering a mark on the surface of the earth. The spirit is
now self-destructive. Matter has claimed a total victory."42

In our time, when talented architects such as

FRANK GEHRY have achieved their notoriety by
designing fish restaurants shaped like giant fish,
intellectuals can be forgiven for asking whether the base
meaning and engagement of architecture with history and
culture has been left by the wayside. Where many would
say things are coming to an end, however, Fehn, in his
attempt at a redemption of functionalism following
principles similar to those of Frampton's tectonic, and
philosophical enquiry rooted in the modern condition (fig.
13), lays the foundations of a possibility for a new
beginning. Aptly he is from a land that has itself just
experienced a new beginning in its recent history, and is
still struggling to come to terms with its significance.
 Ranald Lawrence studied architecture at Jesus
College, Cambridge and graduated in June 2007. He
currently lives in Cambridge and works at the office of
Nicholas Ray Associates.
r.lawrence(at)nray-arch.co.uk

Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Nicholas Ray, Richard Dargavel
and Dalibor Vesely.

1 Heidegger, M. (1971).
2 Postiglione, G. (1997), p. 53.
3 Norberg-Schulz, C. (1997), p. 40.
4 Ibid, p. 49.
5 Fehn, S. (1992), p. 48.
6 Ibid, p. 48.
7 Heidegger, M. (1971).
8 "The bridge is a thing - and, indeed, it is such as
the gathering of the fourfold which we have described."
Heidegger, M. (1971).
9 Fehn, S. (1992), p. 34.
10 Dal Co, F. (1997), p. 15.
11 Ibid, p. 15.
12 Norberg-Schulz, C. (1997), p. 44.
13 Dal Co, F. (1997), p. 8.
 14 Fehn S. (1992), p. 48.
15 Ibid, p. 48.
16 Fjeld, P.O. (1983), p. 27.
17 Fehn, S. (1992), p. 17.
18 Costa, A. (1990), p. 17.
19 Fehn, S. (1992), p. 7.
20 Costa, A. (1990), p. 17.
21 Fehn, S. (1992), p. 30.
22 Frampton, K. (1995), p. 360.
23 Fjeld, P.O. (1983), p. 47.
24 Murphy, R. (1990), p. 94.
25 Fjeld, P.O. (1983), p. 46.
26 Ibid, p. 46..
27 Ibid, p. 46.
28 Ibid, p. 46.
29 Dannatt, T. in Martin, L. (1983), p. 8.
30 Fjeld, P.O. (1983), p. 134.
31 Louren�o, E. (1949), in Costa A, (1990), p. 13.
32 Frampton, K. (1983), p. 150.
33 Defined by Eduard Sekler as "a negation of the
solidity of the built volumes" or "the manner in which the
expressive interaction of load and support in architecture is
visually neglected or obscured". Frampton, K. (1995), p. 20.
34 Frampton, K. (1995), p. 10.
35 Fehn, S. & P.O. Fjeld (1988), p. 47.
36 In Frampton's own words: "If any central
principle of critical regionalism can be isolated, then it is
surely a commitment to place rather than space, or in
Heideggerian terminology, to the nearness of raum, rather
than the distance of spatium." Frampton, K. (1983), p. 162
37 Fehn S. & P.O. Fjeld (1988), p. 48.
38 Ibid, p. 48.
39 Fehn, S. (1992), p. 139.
40 Fjeld, P.O. (1983), p. 148.
41 Ibid, p. 15.
42 Fehn S. & P.O. Fjeld (1988), p. 49.

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