Better Style: A showdown with smagens decay

On a morning in november looks like Bakkekammen in nordvestsjællandske Holbæk a classic residential street. A good-natured wags labrador being aired, flagpoles stands with waving dannebrogsvimpler hoisted to the top, and beech hedges enclosing the gardens front gardens from the narrow roadway.

But yet Bakkekammen not a residential street, as they are the most, for it served as a kind of cradle for an association, which had great influence on Danish house-building: the national Association for Better Style.

It is clear that many of the houses on the road are the sign of some, who have had well-developed sense of proportion. They are symmetrical with the front door as the center line and the windows placed steadily on both sides, and the teglbelagte take fit murstensfacadernes size. The houses have a quiet charisma; the eye rests easily on them, and they are pleasant to look at, like an extensive painting it.

– You can say that the socket is the house shoes, the facade, the body and the roof head. It is almost trite, but the subdivision speaks to us in a way that we think is beautiful. Ask a child to draw a house, and you will usually get a square with a door in the middle, a window on each side and a saddeltag. There is some primal force that makes, we think, that houses that are drawn on the way, is pleasant to look at, says Per Troelsen, architect MAA and project manager at Realdania City & Barley.

Bolius meets him in the Bakkekammen 40, which is very much a part of the story about the Better Style, as the holbækske residential road with to to tell.

Murermestervillaen

See Bakkekammen 40 from the inside

You have the opportunity to see the Better Style-the property Bakkekammen 40, which is owned by Realdania City & Barley.

Sunday, 30. september 2018 will be held the Open House event. The event marks the inauguration of the house, which Realdania City & Build has been in the process of restoration since 2016. Event is free and open to all. The program for the day is under development, but you can read more here.

– In the late 1800s came the second big industrialiseringsbølge. There were many who moved from the country to the city, the railroad was widely used in the country, and stationsbyer shot up along with it. There really was a time in the construction industry from the 1880erne and forward to the turn of the century.

- There was stilforvirring, and there began to be cheaper building materials from Germany. Much of the building fell, several of the tasters for the chest, says Karen Munk-Nielsen, daily head of Holbæk Museum, under the jurisdiction of the Museum Vestsjælland. The museum operates the country's only museum for Better Style, housed in Bakkekammen 45.

In 1904 had Emma Gad, who later wrote the 'Tact and Tone' – the famous book of etiquette – been on a trip in Vendsyssel. It has not been a particularly enjoyable trip, one must assume, subsequently wrote to Gad, an article for the journal 'Architekten', in which she complained of his distress. Not about the lack of Polish in the north, but of the buildings she had seen in the area:

'It is with Dismay I have seen the Smaabyer travelling around Jærnbanestationerne between Aalborg and Skagen. It is impossible to imagine something so skønhedsforladt as these Ruptures'.

the Definition of house and building types

the national Association Better Style was founded in 1915. In the board of directors sat prominent architects, and the association had as its main objective to popularize a new – and better – style.

The new, good practice should be based on local traditions and local building materials, but the houses should be built in a way that made them suitable for modern life, as it looked at the time. There should be a strategy for, what was built, so it was good and beautiful, instead of that there just were built quickly and in the dark, says Karen Munk-Nielsen.

at the same time was Bygmesterskolen established in Holbæk. It was a central part of the (in Danish) purposes, to the construction of the new houses were in the hands of local craftsmen. In many respects the association to make architects redundant, when it came to house building.

– When the building was quiet in the winter, a murersvend go to school and learn about the architects ' work and methods and on the way get the knowledge necessary to become a master builder. Better Style drives also Tegnehjælpen, where you could get help to draw a house.

- the Architect's fee was calculated, depending on whether the example was a school teacher or a doctor, who turned, for the teacher should not have to pay just as much as the chief physician. The point was that everyone should be able to afford to build a proper house, " says Karen Munk-Nielsen.

the entire article here.

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