Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.05.2007, Side 33

Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Skari
It was just before two p.m. on the last day of winter, Wednesday, April
18. Hressó – a popular bar & bistro located on Austurstræti 20, in an old
wooden house from 1852 –was still buzzing from the lunch hour rush with
customers occupying most available seats in the area. Like most days, Eyrún
Ýr Hildardóttir managed the early shift at Hressó and now she was quickly
pacing between tables, serving hungry patrons the daily specials or delivering
café lattés to guests who had come in for a hot cup of coffee.
The next several minutes would pass quickly for Hildardóttir. First, a
woman she knew to be working in the kiosk Fröken Reykjavík, located
next door to Hressó in Austurstræti, approached her hurriedly and asked
to borrow a fire extinguisher, explaining that a small fire had broken out
next door. Hildardóttir rushed to the back and located the fire extinguisher,
notifying a co-worker on her way. Together they half-walked, half-sprinted
next door, Hildardóttir carrying the 12-kilogram fire extinguisher and her
co-worker trailing closely behind her, leaving a few customers wondering
what the emergency was.
Once inside Fröken Reykjavík, they noticed a small fire stemming from
a built-in halogen light in the ceiling. As the Fröken Reykjavík employee
operated the fire extinguisher, Hildardóttir dialled the emergency hotline
112 and asked for assistance. She also noticed two police officers walking
past the kiosk and asked them for help. Confident that the fire was under
control, Hildardóttir soon returned to her post at Hressó, where some of the
customers had begun to filter out onto the street to satisfy their curiosity.
The word spread quickly through Hressó that there was a fire next door.
The staff tried to maintain order by going about their work in the usual
manner. In a matter of minutes, the smell of smoke began to penetrate the
air in Hressó. A couple with a young child quickly prepared to leave while
more and more customers became restless. Soon, the smoke inside became
too much and even the most level-headed occupants vacated Hressó, me
being one of them.
Outside, I could see smoke filtering out through a chimney on top of
Fröken Reykjavík, but also between the corrugated iron plates on the roof
of Austurstræti 22, where the nightclub Pravda was located, as well as the
adjoining roof on Lækjargata 2, the house on the corner of Austurstræti
and Lækjargata. There was no visible fire at the time, but police officers
soon came to the area and started to establish a perimeter, directing people
away from the fire zone.
The first fire trucks were there in a matter of minutes after the call
was placed to 112. By then, the smoke had already become a thick cloud
over the city centre. Nearly 100 fire-fighters spent the next four hours
wrestling the fire and by the time they managed to get it under control,
both the houses on Lækjargata 2 and Austurstræti 22 were in ruins. This
event has raised many questions regarding both fire safety in old houses
and spawned a heated debate on how and if the houses that burned
should be restored.
Club Hopping in Historical Landmarks
The house on Austurstræti 22 was a preserved building, being both a histori-
cal site and one of the oldest houses standing in Reykjavík City. Originally
built for Ísleifur Einarsson, the first judge of the Court of Iceland, in 1801,
the two-storey building was soon sold to Count Trampe, the Danish gov-
ernor of Iceland. It was quickly dubbed the Governor’s Mansion, and was
known by that name to this day.
In 1809, a Danish merchant by the name of
Jörgen Jörgensen arrested Count Trampe and
declared himself monarch of an independent
Iceland. Jörgensen also took up residency in
the house during his two months reign over
the country – roughly corresponding to the Dog
Days of summer, earning him the affectionate
nickname, the Dog Days King in Iceland. In that
sense, the house on Austurstræti 22 was the
closest thing Iceland had to a Royal Palace. It
also housed the Court of Iceland for over 50
years and briefly served as a City Hall.
Lækjargata 2 was also a historical site, al-
though it had not made it onto the list of pre-
served buildings in Reykjavík. Built in 1852, it
is believed to be the first house built around a
street corner in Reykjavík and as such, it is an
architectural landmark. For a long time it was
the location of the bookstore Eymundsson, now
located in Austurstræti 16, and, for a brief pe-
riod, the editorial offices of the daily newspaper
Morgunblaðið.
Early Reactions, Did the Mayor
Jump the Gun?
“This is a sad moment and it is painful to watch
this happen,” said Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, Mayor
of Reykjavík, at a press meeting later that day.
Vilhjálmsson was on location at the fire from
the early moments, watching events unfold. It
was a heated moment for sure, for a Mayor to
watch historical buildings in the city’s centre fall
victim to an untame fire.
At the press conference, Vilhjálmsson stated
that he considered it important to rebuild the
corner in its original state, saying: “I stress that
we attempt to protect this historic corner, this
street image and these houses. I stress that we
move quickly. This is the heart of the city and
we need to show it respect.”
Roughly an hour later, he chose his words
more carefully while talking to the daily news
magazine and TV programme Kastljós, saying:
“We need to look into the matter carefully with
the owners of these houses. It is my ambition
that these historic houses will be maintained.
There is a lot that can be done as we have seen
in Aðalstræti [where old houses from the same
era have been rebuilt]. It is my opinion that we
should maintain this historic street image for as
long as we can.”
And move fast he did. On Saturday, April 21,
Vilhjálmsson announced that the city would enter
negotiations with the owners to buy the remains
and land they stand on. “The aim is to ensure
that the restoration will be done as safely and as
quickly as possible and to ensure that the street
image will be maintained and rebuilt as closely
as possible,” Vilhjálmur explained to the media.
Only a few hours after the fire started, Vil-
hjálmur Vilhjálmsson had made a political deci-
sion that the houses would be restored in their
original state, at that time without so much as
consulting the owners. One business day later
(Thursday, April 19, was the first day of summer,
a national holiday), he had announced that the
city would enter negotiations with the owners.
At no point during that time was there any sort
of political, professional, or public discourse on
how to proceed. The decision was made in the
Mayor’s mind during the emotional period he
watched the fire claim historical buildings.
Building Replicas
Despite their recorded past, little respect has been
paid to the origin of these houses. For a number
of years, they have both served a combination
of nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. Several
changes have been made to both their external
appearance and interior to accommodate those
establishments with little or no regard for the
origin or cultural heritage of the buildings they
were located in. The result is that very little re-
mains of the original houses, except the scale
and the shape of buildings.
There is an old Icelandic proverb that states:
No one knows what he has had until he has lost
it. The fire in Austurstræti seems to be a classic
manifestation of this simple truth. Now that the
houses are gone, city officials have claimed great
interest in preserving the history and heritage
of these houses, where there was little or no
interest taken in them before.
The public debate that ensued in the first few
days after the fire was not nearly as one sided as
the Mayor’s decision. A good part of those who
expressed their opinion of the matter, either in
the media, through blogs or on street corners,
believed that the houses should be restored to
their original state. But there was also a large
part of the population that believed that the
houses represented a reminder of a village that
became a town that became a city; and that
the fire should be regarded as an opportunity
to build something in the heart of the city that
would better fit a modern Reykjavík.
Architect Gunnlaugur Björn Jónsson holds
much interest in old Icelandic houses, and has
worked extensively on restoration projects of
old buildings. When the Grapevine contacted
him for a comment, he expressed views that
could be considered to represent the moderate
side of this debate. “I can understand and see
the arguments from both sides, and I think both
sides have a point” Jónsson said. He remains
ambivalent about the process that started with
the Mayor’s announcement on April 18. “It was
a heat of the moment decision I believe, and it is
difficult to backtrack from that announcement,”
Jónsson said. “I believe a project of this magni-
tude should have been discussed professionally,
and preferably there should have been a contest
for how this corner should be rebuilt.”
Jónsson says that the corner on Austurstræti
and Lækjargata could be regarded as an opportu-
nity to redesign a vital part of the old city centre
to better meet the demands of the modern day.
“The restoration of old houses is a good goal in
and of itself, and in general I am supportive of
all efforts to preserve old buildings. But at this
point we are talking about building new houses
to replicate the old houses, not preserving the
old houses.” Jónsson maintains that replicas of
old houses could in fact be placed at another
location, where they would be better served.
“There is a tradition of moving and rebuilding
these old houses at new locations, such as in
Aðalstræti,” Jónsson says, although he does not
strongly advocate either side of the debate.
No Revision
Pétur Hrafn Ármannsson teaches architecture at
the Iceland Academy of the Arts, and is a curator
for architecture at the Reykjavík Museum of Art.
Ármannsson says that in 1926, Guðjón Samúels-
son, the State Architect of Iceland at the time,
made the first detailed city plan for Reykjavík.
In the plan, Samúelsson – who designed houses
such as Hallgrímskirkja, the National Theatre
and The University of Iceland among most other
grandiose buildings of the time – envisioned that
the small wooden houses in Austurstræti, such as
Austurstræti 20 and 22, would give way to six-
storey buildings such as Samúelson’s design on
the corner of Austurstræti and Pósthússtræti.
“After a fire burned down a large part of
the centre in 1915, building wooden houses
was banned in the area,” Ármannsson explains.
People believed there was no future in wood,
and that the concrete age was upon us. For a
long time, six-storey buildings have been the
benchmark used for planning in the city centre.”
In fact, buildings between four and six storeys
surround the row of houses, from Austurstræti
20 - 22 and Lækjargata 2.
But Ármannsson remains convinced that
there is no question that the Mayor made the
right decision. “These houses have stood there
for over 200 hundred years. There are many
arguments for restoring them to their original
state, as close to their original appearance in
the 19th century.” He does not support the idea
that the houses should be restored at a differ-
ent location. “The houses are a part of a street
image that has been there for a long time. They
serve as a setting for the Government Offices [on
the opposite corner] at Lækjargata. The site is
also on the south side of the street, so building
six-storey buildings at that site would block out
the sun on Lækjartorg square.”
Plans for rebuilding Lækjartorg, the square in
front of Austurstræti 22, are currently on hold,
awaiting the building of the new headquarters
for the Landsbanki Íslands bank that will be
built across the square, opposite Austurstræti
22. Beyond that building site lies the site for the
new Icelandic National Concert and Conference
Centre in Reykjavík, now under development.
The plan is to rebuild the square in unison with
the two buildings under development. In some
ways, it might be considered natural to look at
the rebuilding of Austurstræti 22 as an extension
of that project.
Did Icelandic Architecture Peak
in the 19th Century?
“I’m not going to hide my opinion that I have
often felt that these small houses were like a gap
in a row of teeth,” said Gunnlaugur Magnússon,
architect, in conversation with the Grapevine.
“The problem is that the city doesn’t have a
long history, so there is the tendency to preserve
everything that can possibly be preserved, just be-
cause it is old and we don’t have anything else to
preserve.” In direct opposition to Ármannsson’s
views, Magnússon believes that ancient history
does not by itself justify that the houses that
burned down will be built again at the same
location.
“I have heard people talk about the historical
significance of the house on Austurstræti 22,
but no one talks about the house per se. In this
instance, in my opinion, if the house burned
down, the history is gone. You can not recreate
the history of the historical significance of the
house by building a new house,” Magnússon
explains. His view is that if we always try to
preserve the old houses we will end up with a
city centre that can never be completed.
Magnússon believes that with modern tech-
nology, we should be able to take a step back
and look at our options. “People are afraid of
changes. That is perhaps natural, but people
are afraid that if changes are made [on that
corner] it will be a catastrophe. People regard
the preservation path as a safe route. If you
are afraid of the future, you always choose the
most conservative path. With the 3-dimensional
technique we have available today, it would be
easy enough to build computer models and look
at the options. I cannot believe that somewhere,
someone has not made a proposal for something
different on that corner. This site needs to be
planned in relation to the other developments
in the area.”
His opinion is that there should be an open
architectural competition for how to rebuild the
corner, rather then recreate Austurstræti 22 in
its original state. “As long as there is something
else possible, I am against building a replica of a
house that burned down. We have to face the
fact that the times are different. It is nostalgic to
think that everything was better two hundred
years ago. We become completely stagnant if
we believe that the best we can do was done
two hundred years ago and we cannot possibly
do any better.”
Debating the Future
Looking out the window of my office at the
Grapevine World Headquarters, I overlook a
planned site of another historical building from
the same era, the Zimsen house. Two years ago,
the Zimsen house stood by the other end of
Lækjartorg, opposite Austurstræti 22. Now, it is
standing on a vacant lot by the harbour, waiting
for a park in Tryggvagata to be cleared to make
room for the house.
The Grapevine World Headquarters are lo-
cated just off the corner of Vesturgata and Aðal-
stræti, where old houses have been replicated
with great success, creating a continuous 19th-
century street image. The fact is that old houses
have been moved to new locations with much
success here in Reykjavík. The fire in Austurstræti
prompted many questions about how the city of
Reykjavík should be developed. We could choose
to look at this tragedy as an opportunity to do
something else. Or we could choose to look at
this as an opportunity to show these old houses
some respect and try to restore them to their
original state. The problem is that the debate
never entered the public or professional realm.
The question that remains is this: In the long
run, is the city better served by replicating his-
torical buildings that do not fit the needs of a
modern city? There is no simple answer to that
question. What I do know is that the decision
should not have been the Mayor’s alone. And
it probably should not have been taken at an
emotional moment while fire laid claim to the
buildings.
Reykjavík
Meets
Modernity
The Reykjavík Grapevine pres-
ents the first article in a series of
articles on the problems facing
the city of Reykjavík as it grows
from a small town to a modern
capital city.
the Seri
es
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