AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.03.2004, Blaðsíða 30

Raðhúsahverfi við Klefíaborgir, Akureyri. / Terraced housing by
Klettaborgir, Akureyri.
Sigurður Gústafsson
„During the last 10 years I have been studying four
interconnected worlds of ideas. I call these worlds
construction, deconstruction, consumption and con-
ception. Both my design and architectural work is
divided between these worlds.
The construction series (or world) is a research into
the traditional world of ideas in Modernism as it
appears to me. There I work with rules from Russian
constructivism, De Stijl and cubism. The rules of the
game are strict. One only works with horizontal and
vertical planes, and the use of materials is very spe-
cific. In the furniture series, for example, there are
only three colours - red, blue, and green - plus what
I call light and shadows, such as white, grey and
black. In the architecture belonging to this series the
limitations are not quite as great and the exception
is permitted to prove the rule, or as somebody said:
the exception disproves the rule. An example of
work of this nature is the Klettaborgir in Akureyri,
terraced houses which are currently being built. The
construction series is a kind of hangover cure that I
seek when I feel that my form-world is disintegrat-
ing. There I also look at the basic gathering of build-
ing components, such as how one can keep a chair
together although it is not glued and assembled on
location.
The deconstruction series is a different matter,
although it is constructed in the same way.
Deconstruction is a recent philosophy founded on
dismantling and dissipation. Here I have taken
deconstruction and dismantled myself. That is to
say, I have taken everything previously said, thrown
it away, and started anew.
However, I picked up the same colours. In order to
have some guiding light, I decided to use dance.
The dancer is constantly deconstructing the tradi-
tional movement but nevertheless has to keep his
balance, and sometimes he falls. Here I mix tradi-
tionally known forms and piecemeal solutions.
The tango chair is put together of two materials,
steel and ash. The „askur" is a traditional form of a
tried craft. It is joined by timber pieces while the
woman who is creation and the beginning of all is
the movement, the deconstruction and the change.
The consumption series is pure consumption. There
the consumption society is put on a pedestal along
with the „junk culture" which is probably the only
real contemporary culture. The „take-away lamp“ is
the beginning of this series. There I take the shop-
ping bag which is the substance of our culture and
turn it into a light, representing light and happiness
of our western times. Where there is eternal
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, it becomes
tedious because we had the same dinner last
Monday. Who does not know the feeling, the smell,
of chicken nuggets and french fries and waiting in
line for service, or the bag? Hurrying home, tearing
the food from the bag and eating it in a hurry. Then
nausea.
The conception series is crummy and lcelandic. It is
not bound by any isms, schools or knowledge but
rather, only feeling and origin. When I was a child
(some people say that I have never grown up, but I
take this more as a compliment), I had the good
luck to be brought up next to an old harbour for
small boats where my grandfather had a boat.
During the summer we pulled the boat ashore,
scraped the paint and repaired broken nails.
Sometimes we had to change timberboards and
knead the nails. It was my job to hold the hammer
which receives the kneading blows. Some people
think that this is an easy job but this is far from
being the case. You have to sense the blows from
the person who is kneading and use the hammer as
a musical instrument. When the repair work was fin-
ished, the tar was heated and smeared over the
new timber to protect it from being attacked by the
sea. This well of ideas from my childhood has been
a constant inspiration. The school, Víkurskóli, is just
a ship-form on land, both the exterior and the interi-
or. The sofa, Keflavík, is another boat-form which
has become a couch, the idea being that two men
row the boat ashore, turn it on its side, and sit
down. ■
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