Storytelling Architecture

Concept and sketch programme for an ongoing art project developed in collaboration with Tyra Matilda Rex, Adam Marcel Nielsen, Stine Lebech Schmidt and Plethora Magazine for Deep Forest Art Land.

These nine posters are the result of the initial phase of the project En Eventyrlig Arkitektur (Storytelling Architecture), which explores the forgotten narrative traditions of architecture. With the Modern Breakthrough, architecture became enlightened by the rationalist mindset and turned into an instrument of controlling our environment. It turned functional and was charged with representing production rationales and societal progress. In a manner of speaking, our alliance with nature and our ancient sense of awe at our close connection with the natural world was washed away by so-called New Objectivity.

To this day, we give our buildings nicknames to reflect their intrinsic qualities and love to tell anecdotes about our houses, but in many ways, architecture’s storytelling legacy has been discredited by the rational ideals of objectivity. In this light, storytelling, storytelling and exuberant architecture is often labelled as banal or kitschy. Contemporary architects appear to approach beauty as a strictly rational issue, although of us know deep down that sometimes, that misses the mark.

‘With this project we wish to examine some of architecture’s forgotten virtues. Its imaginative and storytelling aspects. We are not nostalgics, and we seek to approach our topic without prejudice. Karen Blixen had her breakthrough with “Seven Gothic Tales”. What would we end up with if we translated the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale of Snow White and the seven dwarfs into an architectural theme? With this project, we hope to break the taboo that automatically dismisses such an experiment as naive.’

The following phases of the project will culminate in the construction of an architectural installation that will also serve as a shelter for visitors to Deep Forest Art Land.

The project has received support from the Dreyer Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation.