Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

Design • advertising • interior • architecture

Arne Jacobsen – The forefather of Danish Modernism

This is the third post in my series about my favorite architects from the golden days of architecture. We are going back to Scandinavian design again, allow me to introduce Arne Jacobsen, one of the forefathers of Danish Modernism and Functionalism. Born in Copenhagen 1902, educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen and professor at the Academy between...

Eero Saarinen – Space Age Designer & Architect

Eero Saarinen was born in Finland in 1910 but relocated to the United States when his family emigrated there a decade later where he began to study sculpture and furniture design. Saarinen however pursued his ambition to become an architect. His resume contains over 20 buildings. He’s also the architect behind the two landmark buildings TWA Flight Center at JFK Kennedy Airport in New York and...

Mies van der Rohe – The Seagram Building

I have a passion for amazing architecture and iconic buildings (don’t we all?). First up for a short analysis and field-trip is the Seagram building by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, usually just referred to as Mies van der Rohe. Born in Germany in 1886, immigrated to America in the 1930s where he started his career in Chicago as head of the architecture school the...

The Crown Prince of Malmö – Copenhagen Visible from the Top

Malmö’s first skyscraper (and one of Sweden’s earliest) was built in 1964 and namned Kronprinsen (The Crown Prince). It stands 27 floors tall and features 700 apartments which can house as many as 3 000 people. The cost of building it was a staggering 90 million SEK (approx. $12 000 000). Standing at the top of the building, on the visitors terrace, one could see...

Swedish Googie design
Written by Christopher in Architecture

Swedish Googie design

I recently discovered a Swedish website that featured abandoned and disused places, buildings and what not. One of the locations was one of those old motel / restaurant / bar establishment thingies that was a common sight along the Swedish highways up to the 1980s. The interesting thing about this place is the design. It looks like nothing I have seen before, at least not...

Swedish Modernism and Functionalism

I’ve always had a keen interest in architecture, nowadays it seams bigger than ever. Probably because I have been lucky enough to find some interesting books at my college library about the modernism and functionalism in Sweden. The modernism architecture was introduced in Sweden during the Stockholm International Fair in 1930 and really set a standard for the design and lifestyle during the following decades....

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