Mari Lending and Erik Langdalen, Sverre Fehn, Nordic Pavilion, Venice: Voices from the Archives

Abstract

In 1958 the Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn won the competition for the design of the Nordic Pavilion in Venice, inaugurated in 1962. Drawing back on a rich archive on this masterpiece of post-war architecture, Mari Lending and Erik Langdalen tell a different story about the building than the commonly spread poetic and critical narratives. The book is composed of two parts: part one Historicity of a Concrete Object takes the readers through key moments of the “life of the building”: the cultural or geopolitical momentum, preparing the ground, the competition, the opening, the cooperations, etc. The second part of the book comprises invited contributions by a number of authors such as Adrian Forty, Camille Norment, Helen Dorey, to mention just a few, who reflect on different aspects of the Pavilion.