Department of architecture, design and media technologi,

and the Utzon Center, presents International lecture 

'Masterworks' by Michael Sheridan.

October 5th, 16.30, at Obelske Auditorium Utzon Center, Aalborg 

American Architect publishes Monumental Work about the Golden Age of Danish Architecture

In addition to being an architect, Michael Sheridan, an American, is one of the world’s leading authorities on Scandinavian architecture and design. Over the last six years Michael Sheridan has been extra busy. The six years were spent collecting material for a new book about one of the most glorious periods in Danish architecture.

The book, which has been titled Mesterværker (Masterworks), will be published in Danish on 11, October 2011.  It tells the story of when a handful of Danish architects were suddenly propelled to architecture’s Masterclass. The reason was that they, with their new ideas about the single-family house, had combined modern architectural influences from the US and Japan with the best of Danish building tradition.

In 2003, the English publisher Phaidon published Michael Sheridan’s book, Room 606, the SAS House and The Work of Arne Jacobsen. Two years later, Michael Sheridan returned to Denmark, this time to investigate another Danish phenomenon that had caught his interest; the architecturally designed single-family house. People like Jørn Utzon, Arne Jacobsen, Jørgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert, Hanne Kjærholm, Erik Christian Sørensen and Halldor Gunnløgsson designed them in the 1950s. And these Danish houses are quite unique as interpretations of the scope of modern architecture.

All in all Sheridan visited more than fifty single-family houses. Among them he chose 14, which were all built in the period between 1950 and 1962 and still stand intact. These houses are the principal part of Michael Sheridan’s new book. With his special combination of field studies, architectural expertise and international perspective, Michael Sheridan describes why it is these specific houses that deserve to be called Masterworks. And he does it with deep professional insight and real love of his topic.

The book opens with an extensive, innovative essay about the development of the modern house in Denmark from 1920 to 1975, illustrated with more than 150 contemporary photographs. Then follows in-depth descriptions of the 14 houses Michael Sheridan has picked and which have then been photographed in colour, especially for this book. Masterworks concludes with biographies of the 11 leading architects, who designed the houses.

Michael Sheridan:

Mesterværker – enfamiliehuset i dansk arkitekturs guldalder (Masterworks, the Single-Famiy House in Danish Architecture’s Golden Age). 336 pages, hardback. Thoroughly illustrated with more than 500 photographs and sketches in colour and b/w. Colour photographs: Pernille Pedersen and Thomas Loof. Price: 450 dkr. Strandberg Publishing.