Examples of modernist architecture — as in these apartment buildings in the Masthugget district in Gothenburg, Sweden — are a fixture of Nordic cities. Not everyone is a fan.
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A Nordic Revolt Against ‘Ugly’ Modern Architecture
A movement known as Architectural Uprising is pushing back against Scandinavian design trends — and sometimes forcing architects back to the drawing board.
In 2014, the Norwegian architecture firm MAD Arkitektur hit a wall. The architects’ edgy, glassy proposal for a renovation of Sandakerveien 58 B/C, a mixed-use space in the Oslo neighborhood of Torshov, had been rejected by both the city’s Cultural Heritage Management Office and Planning and Building Services Commission. It was too tall, the commissioners ruled, and discordant in a neighborhood whose buildings were otherwise in traditional Scandinavian styles.
Nine years later, as the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported in January, MAD returned with an aesthetic about-face, unusual within the field: a truncated design, sans the drama of the original, that mirrored the styles around it.