AHO WORKS StudieS 2011-2012
Diploma Projects
Master of Architecture
delegates at the CIAM 10 conference in Dubrovnik,
which was held prior to the exhibition opening on
24 August 1956, Korsmo and Gundersen presented
ideas of flexible architecture, thus contributing to
the discussions of modern architecture and urban
methodology. These ideas would inform their overall
vision for the 1956 anniversary exhibition.
The 1956 exhibition addressed the public with the
pedagogical ambition of educating informed users
about architecture, with an understanding of quality
and aesthetics. As a common effort and statement
addressed to their most influential employer, the Oslo
Municipality, the Association members built a kinder-
garten as part of the exhibition designed by Korsmo.
The kindergarten claimed beauty as a leading theme
for a new architecture and the child as its future
arbiter. As the newspaper
Arbeiderbladet
expressed:
“Every revolution starts with the mind of the child.”
The public was engaged in a debate about the
future city through a wide range of media: In addi-
tion to the full-scale building, a fictitious cityscape in
1:10 was modelled in the park in order to represent
the new residential areas. At the entrance, Gunnar
S. Gundersen mounted a 60-metre beam, exhibiting
paintings and entitled:
A Pedagogical Demonstration
of Colour
. In the entrance hall of the Frogner Hov-
edgård, Korsmo exhibited the diversity of architec-
ture “from the city plan to the silver spoon.” Two
retrospective exhibitions were also shown in the old
buildings of Frogner Hovedgård. In addition, all the
members of the association exhibited at least one
work meant to demonstrate the contemporary archi-
tectural debate. “Group 5,” a fraction of PAGON—the
Norwegian chapter of CIAM comprising Sverre
Fehn, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Geir Grung, Odd
Østby and Håkon Mjelva—exhibited the same works
they printed in the canonical volume of the magazine
A5
, published prior to the exhibition opening. The
1956 Oslo Anniversary Exhibition is thus one of the
first two presentations of these young architects from
the post-war avant-garde.
Robert Esdaile presented his KNA project, a city
plan with the ambition of separating the infrastruc-
ture into pedestrian areas. The structure would
connect the large park areas in the city centre to the
coast, from core to shore, and high-speed traffic on a
highway crossing the city east to west, from Skøyen
to Tøyen. According to the drawing, the highway
would cross the exhibition area in such a manner that
the visitors could imagine the suggested structure to
be running above their heads, as standing in the park.
The Child, the City, and the Artist
reveals a locally
and internationally oriented architectural association
with a concern for Oslo’s inhabitants and an architec-
ture emphasising quality. Beauty in this context must
also be understood as consideration for the various
actors in the city, the inhabitant as they wander in
the historical city centre, plays in the fields, or travels
at high speeds between work and home in a green
residential area.
