Philosophic approach

Architectural Review, The, Oct, 1997 by Henry Miles

Filosofgangen (the philosopher's path) is a little exhibition building which is the latest incarnation of the traditional centre for art exhibitions in Odense, the capital of Fyn, the big Danish island between Jutland (which sticks out from north Germany) and Sjaelland (the very large island from which Copenhagen overlooks the Sound to Sweden). The city is the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen and carefully retains as much of its traditional character as possible. Filosofgangen's site is on the little Odense river and has magnificent views over the wild green Munkemose marsh.

Three solid square boxes are grouped round a central space, which starts off in plan as being cruciform, but is eroded towards the south-east, falling with the slope to become a double-height glazed space contained in a sinuous metal and glass wall overlooking river and moor. The boxes have a concrete structure and brick walls, covered with a thin coat of soft render. The concrete frame is expressed as a cornice, and the brick walls are chamfered at most of the corners to let light into the galleries and allow the nature of the structure to be clearly seen: cylindrical concrete columns provide a slightly gawky order which greets you as you come into the building at the upper level. Box corners which are allowed to remain in brick are eroded to provide small windows that give glimpses of the landscape from the galleries. Here the masonry nature of the epidermis is powerfully revealed by corbelling the heads of the windows with increasingly projecting courses of brick exposed on the diagonal to provide a strong yet delicate three-dimensional carving into the monolith. The light grey boxes are further relieved and identified by courses of thin richly coloured glazed tiles.

A shady foyer opens from the entrance. Beyond, the magnificent view beckons through the curving glass wall straight ahead. But a calm bright exhibition gallery entices to the right. Four pyramidal rooflights pour luminance into this big square space, with direct sun filtered out by translucent glass and zinc screens. Turning back a little and descending a small flight of steps, you come to the tall gallery, again with a pyramid rooflight, but mainly illuminated by a large north-facing window, one of the chamfers which sets up the order of the entrance: the space is intended for sculpture exhibitions, and the side lighting allows modelling to be revealed in a way which might be suppressed if all light came from the top.

A big curved stair leads down against the glass wall to the lower level, where there is a small care overlooking the river. Galleries down here are largely artificially lit, though there is a large window opening onto the lawn from the design room under the main gallery.

Throughout, materials are robust. In the galleries, whitewashed brick walls and knotted pine floors wait to receive the nails and screws which will vary with the fixings of each exhibition. Between the white exhibition volumes, spaces are slightly played down, with grey concrete ceilings and columns, concrete pavers, and galvanised steel for all metal parts from glazed wall to light fittings and furniture.

Such tough ingredients could under a lesser talent become grim and institutional. But Hanne Kjaerholm's mastery of the essence of place, which has sometimes been celebrated before in these pages,(*) has ensured that there is a gentle gradation of feeling from the open sunny cafe to the calm, largely enclosed galleries, each of which has a particular ambience appropriate for different kinds of artwork. Her profound understanding of the appropriate use of materials is one of the reasons why the places are so memorable.

* See for instance the graceful gallery in Holstebro (AR January 1983), and the wonderfully romantic timber house on the tiny island of Laeso (AR April 1990).