Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.08.2011, Blaðsíða 8

Nordic House Sturlugata 5 101 Reykjavík Tel. 5517030 www.norraenahusid.is
The Nordic house offers a tour with world famous architect Alvar Aalto (portrayed
by an actor), where guests are taken through the history of the Nordic House,
inroduced to the designs and history of the master himself, along with sampling
culinery delights from Dill restaurant, the top kitchen in Iceland. Come and
experience an architectural gem right in the heart of the city...

TAKE THE TOUR WITH ALVAR AALTO
Please feel free to drop
by monday to saturday
at 11 am and 13 pm.
Price 10 €
8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2011
Reykjavík | An outward looking city
A few weeks ago I was
wandering around Skóla-
vörðu holt where Hall-
grímskirkja—the large
church dedicated to the poet and
psalmist Hallgrímur Pétursson—
stands. From the top of the church
tower there’s a great view over
Reykjavík and the surrounding
landscape. Reykjavík is arguably
not a beautiful city in itself. It is very
spread out and the architecture is
chaotic, but the way it interacts
with the surrounding nature can
be rather lovely. Thus Reykjavík is
in many ways an outward looking
city—looking out to the sea and the
hills.
THE POETS WHO DISCOVERED
REYKJAVÍK
It is sometimes said that the poet Tó-
mas Guðmundsson was the first to dis-
cover the beauty of Reykjavík, which
had generally been frowned upon as a
place without culture and grace (surely
Akureyri in the north was much pret-
tier). Tómas, who was born in 1901,
wrote poems about summer nights in
Reykjavík, lovers meeting by the Pond,
and the girls on Austurstræti. Some
people think these poems are more
pastoral than urban, which is perhaps
not so strange, as Tómas originally
came from a farm by an idyllic river in
the south.
Then the poet and cynic Steinn
Steinarr–possibly the most widely
read poet in Iceland–came along with
a harsher view of the city. Steinn was
also a farm boy, but he was bought up
in poverty and hardship, and Reykjavík
is marked by an existential anguish in
his poems.
COLORFUL ROOFS
From the top of the church tow-
er, you will see some of the oldest
neighbourhoods in town: Þingholt,
Skólavörðuholt, and Skuggahverfi. You
will notice that the roofs are painted in
a most colourful array of reds, blues,
and greens. They are mostly made from
corrugated iron, a building material
much appreciated in a country with a
lot of wind and rain. Corrugated iron is
also cheap and it was very popular in
Iceland in the early twentieth century.
In the same way that the doorways
of Dublin with their many forms and
colours are a symbol of that city, the
colourful roofs could be a symbol of
Reykjavík.
DIVERSE STYLES
Looking east and a bit to the north
from the tower, you will see two main
thoroughfares of central Reykjavík—
Laugavegur and Skólavörðustígur—as
well as the maze of small streets be-
tween them. You will notice the small
scale of the buildings and their diverse
architecture. There is little architectural
tradition in Iceland so people have ba-
sically built houses anyway they liked.
The authorities cared little about sym-
metry and form, and the architects
studied in many parts of the world,
bringing home with them different
ideas.
It is even said that Moorish influ-
ence crept into the architecture when
Icelanders started going to the south
of Spain in the late 1960s. An Icelan-
dic tourist might have come home with
a picture of the Alhambra and told his
builder, “I want something like that.”
REYKJAVÍK CLASSIC AND MOD-
ERNISM
During the first decades of the twen-
tieth century, taller buildings like Hotel
Borg and Austurstræti 14 (which hous-
es Café Paris) were built in downtown
Reykjavík. These buildings look rather
affluent and ornate, and the style is
sometimes referred to as “Reykja-
vík classic.” But the financial crash in
1930s hit Iceland very hard and this
style of building was soon history.
When construction began again after
the war, the period of modernism had
taken over and its impact can clearly be
seen on the cityscape. Some say that
unfortunately Reykjavík was built dur-
ing the wrong time, in a period when
modernism, functionalism and brutal-
ism were dominant in architecture.
Old houses were torn down to make
way for new modernist structures. One
such building, which houses the con-
servative newspaper Morgunblaðið,
towers over the rather modest square
where Austurstræti and Aðalstræti
meet. This was in a way fitting, for Mor-
gunblaðið dominated the media and
public discourse for a long time (it is
said that governments were formed in
the offices of its editors), not losing its
overwhelming influence until about ten
years ago.
POVERTY, COLD AND DAMP
Many felt ashamed of the old timber
houses. A famous union leader said
they reminded him of poverty, the cold
and damp. For a long time most of the
timber houses in town were in a state of
decline—they were mostly the abodes
of poorer people—and many of the larg-
er ones burnt down. In the 1980s, fires
were quite frequent in the city centre
and the authorities seemed almost glad
to be rid of them.
It was not until the late 1980s that
preservationist efforts became popular.
The turning point was when it was de-
cided to rebuild Bernhöftstorfa, a row
of old timber houses facing Lækjargata,
now housing the restaurants Lækjar-
brekka and Humarhúsið.
ENTER THE SPECULATORS
Still, a lot of harm had been done and
more was yet to come. During the boom
years from 2000–2008, speculators
started buying up old buildings down-
town in order to tear them down and
build larger and more profitable ones.
Plans were even drawn up for a huge
shopping mall at the top Laugavegur.
These structures were mostly to
be made from black stone, glass and
steel—the favourite building materials
of the boom. This would surely have
added to the stylistic diversity of these
streets. But there was quite a bit of re-
sistance to these projects, especially
from young people, and alternative
plans to preserve old houses were also
put forth.
Ultimately, it was once again the
economy that intervened; the crash of
2008 put a stop to these big projects.
Even so, the battle is not quite over.
Speculators still own many of the old
houses and they have been allowing
them to fall into disrepair so that they
can get permits to tear them down
when the economy picks up again.
THE ARMY CAMPS
Back to the streets that you see
from the church tower, the name of
Skólavörðustígur comes from a mound
that stood at the top of the hill where
schoolboys from the old Latin School
used to meet in the nineteenth cen-
tury. At that time the hill was extremely
rocky and the town didn’t reach further
than the building that now houses the
Eymundsson bookshop. It was a bank
until the economic collapse. Further up
the hill there were just a few vegetable
gardens.
During the war there was a big cor-
rugated iron barracks for British sol-
diers on the hill. The British and Ameri-
cans left a lot of these camps around
Reykjavík and after the war, they be-
came homes for people who couldn't
afford other housing. Some of these
camps lasted until the 1960s and being
a child raised in one of them was not
always easy.
DRINKING IN THE SHOPS
Laugavegur was traditionally the main
road to the countryside. In the old days
one would have seen farmers on horses
riding down the street to town, dressed
in their best attire, but maybe returning
in a dishevelled state. There were not
many bars or restaurants in Reykjavík
in those days, but the travellers hung
around the shops where they would be
given strong alcohol. Hanging around
the shops was considered quite prob-
lematic in those days. The streets were
sometimes muddy or dusty, and open
sewers used to run down them with an
overwhelming stench, so if you fell onto
the ground while inebriated you were
liable to get dirty.
Jónas Jónasson, a priest who put
together a big book about the folksy
ways of the Icelanders, has very vivid
descriptions of the general lack of
cleanliness. Many never bathed, and
only turned their clothes inside out ev-
ery once in a while.
But there were also those who prac-
ticed cleanliness. On Laugavegur there
was heavy traffic of women, many of
them servant girls, taking laundry about
a mile from town to the hot springs in
Laugardalur where clothes
A VIEW FROM THE
CHURCH TOWER
Words
Egill Helgason
Illustration
Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
Egill Helgason is a journalist, political commentator, blogger and the
host of Iceland's only literary TV show, as well as Iceland's premiere
political talk show.
Continues on page 40
“Jónas Jónasson, a priest who put together a big book about
the folksy ways of the Icelanders, has very vivid descriptions
of the general lack of cleanliness. Many never bathed, and
only turned their clothes inside out every once in a while. ”