In 1928, the deed was signed and an architectural design competition was announced. The participants in the competition were bound by a number of clauses and provisions. The sixty-two design proposals submitted were displayed in an exhibition that was covered by most of the capital’s newspapers, and the winners were the architects Gudolf Blakstad and Herman Munthe-Kaas with their proposal “Felix”.

The construction work started in the spring of 1929 and concluded around a year later, with major changes made to the original proposal. The building is cast concrete, with bricks arranged on the outside in a pattern to demonstrate that they are not load-bearing. Rooms were added at the rear of the building that were rented to the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts, with classrooms and professors’ studios on three floors.

On October 1 1930, a sunny autumn day, Kunstnernes Hus opened with the Autumn Exhibition. King Haakon, Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha were present. In the newspapers, the house was described as Europe's "most modern exhibition building". The opening marked the beginning of a new era for Norwegian artists: they finally got their own house! The press stated that the Autumn Exhibition had had a renaissance with the new premises. Twice as many works were submitted for jury trial as before, and as many as 400 works were exhibited.

Building the house cost 650,000 Norwegian kroner. The newspaper Tidens Tegn compared its facade to a piece of art, stating further that the opening of the house "heralds a new era for our art life as a whole".

Source: Kunstnernes Hus: https://kunstnerneshus.no/en/about/history

Kunstnernes Hus 

The Re-Store teaching unit offers new perspectives on the preservation, reuse and transformation of architectural heritage from the recent past, with a special focus on the provenance of building systems, components and materials. Taking an Experimental Preservation approach, the unit responds to the challenges of the climate crisis by renegotiating the way we understand, evaluate, and transform the built environment. Through MA studios and seminars, the unit aims to reinvigorate the discipline by challenging the prevailing ideas of authorship, origins and the integrity of the architectural monument. Engaged in a wide range of practices counting archival studies, value assessment methods, restoration techniques, survey practices, model building, drawing, writing and dissemination, the students are trained to participate in the contemporary discourse with a critical mindset and high design skills. Recent studios have focused on concrete, building systems, prefabrication, building components, petroleum and weather. Re-Store publications include the 

Former Re-Store faculty: Andreas Angelidakis, Thordis Arrhenius, Bård Helland, Amandine Kastler, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Andrea Pinochet, Kim Pløhn, Alena Rieger, Bryony Roberts, Ingrid Dobloug Roede, Erlend Skjeseth, Jørgen Tandberg, Kjetil Sæterdal, Léa-Catherine Szacka, Helle Bendixen Trier, Espen Vatn.

Re-Store

This seminar explores the full material provenance of Kunstnernes hus through thorough investigations of the building materials, technical infrastructure, lighting, maintenance systems, exhibitions, and the thousands of artworks that have been on display throughout its 95-year history.

Archives and on-site surveys of the building will form the basis for the studies, where students will excavate the sourcing, ownership history, production history, economy, usage, and alteration records of the components, materials and artworks.

By constructing an alternative history of the building, this seminar challenges the way we understand and value-assess buildings and might change the way we transform them for the future. Additionally, this seminar aims to provide scenarios for the future development of Kunstnernes hus.

In 1928 a competition was launched. Out of 62 entries, Blakstad & Munthe-Kaas won with their proposal titled “Felix”. The architectural competition was showcased to the public in the form of an exhibition and was widely circulated in the media.

Kunstnernes hus was completed in 1930 as an artist-led foundation to show contemporary Norwegian and international art. Incredibly rich in its detailing and exquisite in its use of natural light, Kunstnernes hus is still viewed as one of the best exhibition spaces in all of Norway.

, Blakstad and Munthe-Kaas state, “The building’s load-bearing concrete skeleton is externally clad with 23cm hand-formed bricks. Since these do not have any bearing function, we have expressed this in the patterning. The brick is internally lined with 7cm of aerated concrete that is flush with the inside of the skeleton.” They continue onward writing, “The floor is covered with black marbleized rubber flooring on a parquet base. The walls are clad with light gray linen fabric from the floor to a height of 4 meters, above which they are finished with fine plaster.” This text brings up many questions – questions we will explore in this seminar. Where was the brick from? Who laid the brick? The aerated concrete? The rubber flooring? Which of these were bespoke? Which were industrial products? Through focusing on the constituent parts of this building with detective-like eyes, we will understand the provenance of this kunsthalle in order to form a new way of writing the history of this beloved icon.

The seminar is part of the research project 

Provenance Projected. Architecture Past and Future in the Era of Circularity

 led by Mari Lending and Erik Langdalen and is the second in a series looking at the provenance of architecture through the lens of a building for art. In the fall of 2024, 

 explored Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, resulting in an exhibition bringing forward the archive alongside key findings from the semester.

Kunstnernes hus and Contemporaneity, Mari Lending. Course Introduction, Erik and Nick. Welcome and tour of Kunstnernes hus, Sarah Lookofsky

Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move. 

Lecture, Dag Erik Elgin and Marianne Heier. Discussion,

Workshop on Exhibition Design, Espen Gleditsch

 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Elective Course Week, Mounting of exhibition, Final Review + Exhibition Preview

The Provenance of a Kunsthalle, Pauline, and Stian Ådlandsvik

KUNSTNERNES HUS FURNITURE

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