Exploring Scandinavia

Erik I of Sweden did his crusader service among the Finns during the 12^th century, marking the start of Sweden’s 700-year annexation of Finland and Erik’s climb to the status of his country’s patron saint.

The skull and crown of Swedish 12th century King Erik Jedvardsson, called Erik the Saint

But aggrandizement was all too easily reversed, as occurred in Denmark on Valdemar II’s exit. “The crown fell off the head of the Danes,” a chronicle wailed, “and they became the laughing stock for all their neighbors through civil wars and mutual destruction.”

In Sweden, the saintly Erik I was murdered by the son of the king he had removed, Sverker, leaving Erik’s son in no doubt about what was expected of him. He did not disappoint.

Like the Church, German and Dutch Hansa traders recognized the chaotic absence of government as an excellent opportunity. Scandinavia had an abundance of fish but a shortage of grain. By tying up the markets in both commodities, and the shipping in between, the Hansa had a goose of pure gold, and it gave them a network of strategic ports and market towns across the continent.

But if Scandinavia was sapped by an extortionate exchange rate between fish and grain, it was then poleaxed by the Black Death in 1349. With the population of Norway for example, cut by more than half, economics reverted to the Stone Age.

One interlude in the slow reconstruction process was the arrival of shoals of herring so dense that fish could be caught with bare hands. Fishing vessels raced from all over Europe until some 40,000 were crammed into the Sound, temporarily loosening the Hansa’s grip on the market.

The 14^th-century king Valdemar IV of Denmark launched a snap invasion of the Hansa’s base at Visby in Gotland and, flushed with success, assumed the title of “King of the Goths”. The Hansa were not amused. Throwing the resources of their 77 towns and cities into a military alliance with Swedes, they bounced Valdsemar off his Danish throne and invited applications.

Margrethe, the young wife of King Håkon VI of Norway, proposed their son Oluf. He was five years old.

Aula Medica, the lecture hall complex in Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute , with its 1,000-seat auditorium, was offiucially opened last summer. It enables the university to arrange major public events, such as the Nobel lectures, which attract audiences from around the world.


Long-felt need
As far back as 1937 architect Ture Rydberg drew up plans for a large lecture hall, his “Per Haps” proposal winning Karolinska Institutet’s architecture competition for future campus development. The plans were however shelved due to lack of funds.

Karolinska Institutet has a close, interactive relationship with the wider community. Seminars, lectures and symposia form a natural part of its schedule of activities. Despite this, the university has previously lacked its own premises in which to arrange public events, and there has long been a need for its own lecture hall complex.

Private donation
Work started on the new lecture hall complex in September 2010. The auditorium, with the exception of the office and service facilities, has been fully financed by a private donation from the Erling-Persson Foundation.

Aula Medica was completed in the summer of 2013 and houses a 1,000-seat auditorium, office space for 90 staff, 100 conference seats, two restaurants and a café. Nobel lectures, large scientific symposia, gala receptions and conferences will be held here.

Building design
Wingårdh has designed the building, the form and geometry of which contrasts with the traditional low-rise brick buildings on the campus. It is situated along Solnavägen opposite the new university hospital. With its central location and geometric form, the lecture hall complex opens up the campus area to the main public thoroughfare.

Energy-efficient building
An environmental program has been produced to ensure a green build. Highly energy-efficient solutions have been devised following investigations into choices of system. For example, the carcass of the building comprises triangular elements that form an airtight, energy-lean façade.

Source: Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm

The new Porsgrunn Maritime Museum and Exploratorium is situated in the Norwegian town of Porsgrunn, 100 km south west of Oslo. It will tell the story of the town’s dock yard industry and its maritime history, which has employed thousands of people from the whole region.

In addition, the attractive location of the museum right on the riverside opens up an important process for the city concerning the future extensive urban renewal of the entire Porsgrunn Harbor area.

“Porsgrunn is an industrial town, which is reflected clearly in the museum’s surrounding context. It consists of small to medium sized industries in the shape of small characteristic wooden buildings. It was important to create a museum with a high level of sensitivity towards these surroundings, yet at the same time for the new Maritime Museum and Exploratorium to stand out as a spectacular contemporary building and become a landmark of Porsgrunn”, Lars Bendrup explains, Owner of the Danish archetcts TRANSFORM, and continues, “Our general vision was to turn a backside into a frontside. With the new museum the town will now orientate itself towards the beautiful river, which for much too long has been Porsgrunn’s industrial backside”.

New meets old
The new Maritime Museum and Exploratorium is composed of eleven smaller square volumes, together amounting to almost 2,000 m2. Each volume has a different roof slant that assembled make up a varied roof structure. A characteristic aluminum facade, locally produced in Porsgrunn, not only holds the dynamic building structure together, but at the same time reflects light and colors from the surrounding Norwegian mountain landscape.

Dan Stubbergaard, Founder and Creative Director of COBE, elaborates, ”It is a sensitive art adding new to old in a historic area. First of all we wanted to understand the area’s characteristics and then we wanted to strengthen it but at the same time create something new and contrasting. The abrupt building structure of downscaled building volumes and the expressive roof profile are for example clear references to the area’s historic small wooden buildings, which all have their own particular roof profiles. This interpretation of the area’s pitched roofs and small wooden building entities sets the final frame for a unique and characteristic contemporary building”. He continues: “The goal was to create a house that not only understands and shows consideration for its surroundings, but also contributes with something radically new and different”.

Porsgrunn on the architectural map
Even before its openining in November 2013 the new Maritime Museum and Exploratorium received Porsgrunn Municipality’s building practice prize 2013 (“Byggeskikkpris”). The committee among other things emphasized the expressive form of the house, the aluminium facade, and an obvious readable logic of the building.

”The building is so fine that it puts Porsgrunn on the architectural map”, the foreman of the jury said at the award ceremony.

The childrens favorite place to visit, lots of activities

Du Verden – Maritime Museum and Exploratorium is a vibrant venue with activities, experiments, interactive communication and information shows.

Denmark’s particular difficulty in the 11th century was not fragmentation but a succession of kings so ineffectual (e.g. “Harald the Hen”) that several were simply taken out to sea and drowned.

In Sweden, the throne bobbed between two dynasties who routinely murdered the opposing incumbent. Next to these goings-on, the princes of the new power in the land, the Church, looked purposeful.

As comfortable in the saddle as the pulpit,  Bishop Absalon of Roskilde (1128-1201) personally sorted out “the heathen Wend”, a tribe of defiant Baltic pagans whose headquarters were of red-and-white banner in the heavens. It became Denmark’s national flag, the oldest national flag in the world and a source of pride among Danes. It must never touch the ground and only a pennant version may be flown at night. (Same rules apply to the Norwegian and Swedish national flags).

Absalon was a highly influential personality in medieval Denmark and a key figure in the development of the country after years of civil war. Portrayed on top as warrior on his rearing horse on Højbro Square in Copenhagen.

Absalon was born in 1128 as son of the wealthy landowner, Asser Rig, and his wife, Inge. His childhood home is a farm in Fjenneslev on Zealand Island. The farm is gone, but a memorial  for the bishop converting the heathens marks the place, where it was.

In 1192, Absalon resigns at the age of 64. He lives his last years in Scania, where he was Arch Bishop of Lund since 1177. Absalon dies during Easter in 1201 and is buried in Sorø Monastery Church.