Art N' About

Author: ALEXXA GOTTHARDT

What do you imagine when you think about Scandinavia? First, you think pure, rosy-cheeked, dirndl-clad milkmaids prancing down cobblestone paths in happy little clogs. Second, you think IKEA. Those are two very different images of Scandinavia, yet how diverse are they really? Yes, milkmaids are unique people and IKEA is a store that produces inanimate objects in massive amounts, but they do have one very important thing in common. They are both too freaking perfect.

Perfection is supposed to be a good thing, right? Wrong. Why? Because perfection, even if it means bunches of brilliantly blonde leather-breeched boys bouncing through bluebells, is boring. This is especially true when it comes to art and architecture. For years, Scandinavian design has been stuck in an architectural funk of flawnessess, and, consequently, an insufficiency of innovation. Until now, that is. For the first time in a long time, Sweden and Denmark are ending an architectural age steeped in the plainness of perfection in favor of a new era of originality, unconventional beauty, sustainability and reason. Scandinavia is announcing loudly and passionately that they are entering an architectural era of less aesthetics and more ethics, and the art world is paying attention.

While Denmark and Sweden's Oresund Region (encompassing the cities of Copenhagen and Malmo) may not be the art, culture and economic center that London, Paris and Berlin are, it is quickly becoming Europe's hottest hub for architectural innovation. Bold new buildings are popping up all over the region, serving as bastions for the increasingly popular idea that architecture can help solve some of society's most profound issues while looking audaciously attractive in the process.

Take the Oresund Bridge, the link between Copenhagen and Malmo. Completed in 2000, this bridge not only serves as a five-mile long monument of engineering, architectural genius and beauty, but it also joins Denmark and Sweden for the first time since the Ice Age. With the bridge in place, people can now work in Copenhagen and live in Malmo, or, perhaps, vice versa. This flexibility opens up some great new economic opportunities between the two countries and is beginning to look mighty - like a model for the advantages of cross-border cooperation for the rest of the world.

In Copenhagen's Havnestad neighborhood arises another impressive edifice - the Gemini Residence. Gemini's impressive quality lies not only in its über-cool aesthetics, but also in its interesting origins. While now two luxury waterfront residential towers, the structures were formerly abandoned grain silos which famed Dutch architectural firm MVRDV transformed by using the core silos as an open lobby atrium and attaching apartments to the outside. Voila, recycling at its best.

On the other side of the bridge towers another statue of stimulating architectural innovation. Turning Torso, a creation of architect-extraordinaire Santiago Calatrava, is part revolutionary abstract sculpture, part functional residence and part every ecologist's dream. The Tower twirls and twists 54 stories into the sky above Malmo and boasts an array of sumptuously designed apartments and offices as well as 100 percent renewable energy and a special recycling system that turns organic waste into bio-gas. So cool.

Beauty and function combine to create architecture that is all at once economically profitable, socially responsible, environmentally conscious and revolutionarily beautiful.

And just think, this is only the beginning. So now, what do you imagine when you think about Scandinavia? Innovative, ground-breaking buildings encircled by throngs of rosy-cheeked, brilliantly blonde, bouncing, frolicking cute little Scandinavians? Yep. Me too.