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AH4081   The Scandinavian Art of Building and Design: Identity and Myth

Academic year(s): 2019-2020

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 10

Semester: 1

Availability restrictions: Not automatically available to General Degree students

Planned timetable: 1.00pm - 3.00 pm Tue (lecture) and either 10.00 am or 11.00 am Wed (sem)

This course explores the distinctive nature of Scandinavian architecture and design, and their role in fostering specific ideas about Nordic identity. While ‘Nordic’ more accurately describes the grouping of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, the term ‘Scandinavian Design’ emerged in the 1950s as a carefully curated branding concept with associated mythologies that have remained powerful to the present day. This course engages with these mythologies – and their earlier origins – as manifested in the built, painted and designed environment. We begin in the late nineteenth century with an examination of emerging notions of ‘national’ identity in the rich forms of National Romanticism, before moving on to study architectural Expressionism, Nordic Classicism, and Scandinavia’s unique form of architectural modernism known as ‘Functionalism’ or the ‘Scandinavian synthesis’. Binding modernist innovations with particular Scandinavian ideas about social equality, the home and the environment, Scandinavian architecture and design have gained a reputation for being ‘democratic’, ‘authentic’ and ‘humane’, in touch with the modern world, but also with age-old craft traditions and the Nordic landscape. In the latter part of the course we will interrogate the validity of such myths, the mechanisms of their creation and examine their legacy for so-called ‘New Nordic’ and the designers of today.

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: 1 x 2-hour lecture, 1 x 1-hour seminar (x 11 weeks), 2 x tutor's office hour (x 12 weeks), fieldtrip - 8 hours.

Scheduled learning hours: 33

Guided independent study hours: 267

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: 2-hour Written Examination = 30%, Coursework = 70%

As defined by QAA
Written examinations : 30%
Practical examinations : 0%
Coursework: 70%

Re-assessment: 1 x Written Assignment to be agreed by the Board of Examiners

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr S M Kallestrup
Module teaching staff: Dr S Kallestrup
Module coordinator email sk61@st-andrews.ac.uk