From Bauhaus to Bispebjerg – Edvard Heiberg and the Social Avant-Garde
In: A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950Search for other papers by Nan Dahlkild in
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Abstract
Edvard Heiberg was a central figure in the social avant-garde of the mid-twentieth century as an architect, debater and writer. Especially in the interwar years, he contributed to setting the agenda for the architecture and cultural debate of the time. He was originally from Norway but was educated at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen. Here he was introduced to classical architectural styles, but after study tours to, among other places, France he became part of the modern movement. He designed his own house with a modern layout in 1924, and he was extremely active as editor of and contributor to cultural magazines of the interwar period such as Kritisk Revy, Plan and Kulturkampen. He was a teacher at the Bauhaus in 1930, and throughout the 1930s and ’40s he developed social functionalism both as an architect of a series of social housing projects in Copenhagen and as the author of the book To Vær. Straks (Two Rooms: Immediately) from 1935. Several of his ideas can be seen in the projects for a cultural centre at Bispebjerg in the years after World War ii. In his final years he devoted his time to building research and rational kitchen design.