The Kulturhuset in Randers, Denmark
After our stay in Gothenburg in the summer, we crossed by ferry to Frederikshavn and drove south to Randers, Denmark’s seventh largest city situated in the northeast of the Jutland peninsular.
Randers was a thriving market town in medieval times and many of its 15th-century half-timbered houses and the medieval St Martin’s Church remain. Trade by sea was via the Randers Fjord and during the 19th century, Randers became one of the most important industrial towns in the country only to be outpaced by Aarhus and Aalborg at the beginning of the 20th century; today most of the larger industries are gone. The population is now around 65,000 and the main attraction today is the tropical zoo that has the largest artificial rainforest in Northern Europe and 350 species of plants and over 175 species of animals many of which roam freely under its three geodesic domes.
What I did not realise when deciding to break our journey here is that there is also a notable modern building in the town, the Kulturhuset, the cultural centre of the town. This contains a number of important cultural institutions including the Randers Library, the Randers Art Museum and the Museum Østjylland, which focuses on local and regional history.
The building was designed by a well-known Danish architect, Flemming Lassen and it was completed in 1969. Lassen (who had a brother, Mogens Lassen, also an architect) designed a number of other notable cultural centres and libraries (including those in Lund, Sweden, Herning and Hobro) working within the idiom of the ‘International Style’. In the 1930s he set up an office with Arne Jacobsen with whom, in 1929, he won a competition for designing the ‘House of the Future’. They also won the competition for the design of Søllerød Town Hall which was completed in 1942. Regular readers of this Journal (if there are any such individuals) will remember from my article about Erhard Lorenz, that he was the site architect for the town hall project and in fact Erhard, working with Mogens Lassen, had been placed third in the competition for the design of the town hall.
The Kulturhuset is a 3-storey, rectangular, reinforced concrete structure attached to a 19th Century building that was originally a technical school. The ground floor, that contains the main entrance and the library, is raised above the outside ground level, on a level with the ground floor of the original building. The first floor contains the Museum Østjylland and the top floor, the Art Museum.
The library on the ground floor, has windows, punctuated by vertical concrete mullions, on the three external walls with a large, top-lit central atrium. I was told by the librarian that the atrium was originally open to the sky but there were problems with rain accessing the library and a glass roof was fitted in the 1980s. The ground floor of the atrium is now a very pleasant space for sitting and reading with access to the aisles of books on three sides and views out through the aisles.
See the photo gallery for photos of the Library and the atrium.
Although this is not obvious externally, the main part of the building containing the library, the museum and the art gallery, consists of four equal volumes arranged around a central atrium and lit from the atrium (only the library has windows on the external walls) and from the roof on the second floor. The area between the main building and the original building contains the circulation spaces (entrance, staircase and lift) on all three floors with on the ground floor some offices and above these on the first floor an open courtyard providing light to the rear of the original building and to the rear elevations of the Østjylland Museum and the Art Gallery.
See the photo gallery for photos of the circulation spaces and the first-floor courtyard.
The first floor, containing the Museum Østjylland is lit on three sides from the atrium with most of the galleries having artificial lighting. The second floor containing the Art Museum is also lit from the atrium but the galleries themselves are lit from above by roof lights which provide very good, indirect natural lighting.
The Art Museum is one of Denmark’s oldest and the permanent collection is a unique collection of predominantly Danish art from 1800 to the present day. The temporary collection when we visited the museum was of work by William Scharff one of the leading proponents of Cubism in Denmark.
See the photo gallery for photos of the Art Museum.
The first sight of the Kulturhuset is rather surprising given that the external walls to the three-storey building on all three sides are of solid, exposed, reinforced concrete, an uncompromising example of modern architecture in the Brutalist style and not what one would expect in a small regional city. The concrete is not however, Corbusian ‘beton brut’ as it is board-marked but otherwise very well finished with no other visible joints. The face of the concrete is in very good condition with no staining probably because there is a wide concrete roof overhang on all three sides protecting the walls.
See the photo gallery for photos of the exterior
Apparently, opinion in the town is fairly mixed with some people liking it and others hating it. I must say that I liked it with my only real criticism of the exterior being the way that the new joins the old; there is a small, fairly insignificant set back on both sides, both with a rainwater downpipe in it. I think that I would have emphasised the junction between the new and old buildings more by possibly setting back the face of the entrance and circulation area from the main elevation or glazing it or maybe both. Otherwise, I think that it is a very impressive building with bold elevations, simple circulation patterns, very good internal finishes and detailing and very good lighting to the library and the art gallery.
Architecture in Developing Countries: A Resource
The design and construction of appropriate, low-cost buildings for education and health in rural areas of the developing world.
Nigel Wakeham worked as an architect for 23 years in Southern and West Africa and the SW Pacific working on education, health and other projects. He has since worked for over 20 years as a consultant for national governments and agencies such as the World Bank, DFID, ADB and AfDB on the implementation of the construction components of education and health projects in many countries in the developing world.
The objective of this website will be to provide the benefit of more than 45 years of experience of working in developing countries to architects and other construction professionals involved in the design and construction of appropriate, low-cost buildings for education and health. It will provide reference material from the projects that Nigel has worked on and technical information on the design, construction and maintenance of educational and health facilities and other relevant topics and these will be added to from time to time.
I am happy to be contacted by anyone requiring further information on any of the projects or resources referred to in this website or by anyone wishing to discuss work possibilities.
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