Vilhelm Lauritzen — A Modernist Arrival
In 1939 the first terminal in Copenhagen Airport opened to the public. A modernist arrival is based on a coherent composition of space-creating structures and stretched surfaces. Lauritzen's travels through Central Europe introduced him to functional architecture and modern design, the idea that design should be based, first and foremost, on function. The exposure initiated his transition towards the movement and soon launched his career in modern architecture.
Vilhelm Lauritzen (1894—1984) is considered one of Denmark's most important and influential architects and was an ambassador for introducing the groundbreaking functionalism in Danish design and architecture. Many of his buildings embrace modern life. During all of his life, Lauritzen thought of architecture as applied art — with equal emphasis on art and skills. Because for Vilhelm Lauritzen, there was no life without aesthetics.
He mastered both daylight and artificial light. Lauritzen consistently incorporated natural light into his architecture using large south- and west-facing windows that mixed the warm sunlight with the cooler skylights from tall north- and east-facing windows. Throughout most of his famous modernist buildings, you can experience his unique and groundbreaking way of working with light. It shifts the focus from the delimiting wall surfaces to the room itself and makes people and furniture emerge nuanced in the sculptural light. His design and architectural language was always down-to-earth and unpretentious — and adapted to Danish virtues and demands of the time for its simplicity and practicality without losing its elegant touch.
The staircase, which leads passengers up to the light balcony corridor on the 1st floor, is charmingly rotated a few degrees out into the concourse. Like the other structures, the staircase, with its slight rotation, seems like a piece of furniture, lightly incorporated into the concourse. Similarly, the restaurant's double-curved façade shape is an element that frequently occurs in Lauritzen's architecture and that of other architects of the time. It may be regarded as a loan from Cubist painters such as Picasso and Braque, whose pictures often feature guitars' outlines.
The airport terminal has tactile, visual, and aural qualities, but was not an expensive building like some of Lauritzen's other architectural landmarks. It was made from cheaper, more industrial materials, although the unique brass railing on the staircase and the marble cladding at the entrances are exceptions.
To understand how groundbreaking his architecture was, we have to look at contemporaries. Architectural codes had long focused on the buildings' shape and ornamentation, where Lauritzen's approach directs more about usability. For example, there was no model for what an airport looked like back in the late 1930s. As a functionalist, he divided the building into an airside and landside. Today, it remains the design approach for most of the world's airports.
Not did he only design buildings; he was often a leading force in interior design, including everything from door handles, railings, and ashtrays to lamps, sofas, and counters. In the interior, function dictates the shape. It was clear that Vilhelm Lauritzen was driven by his free thought and a starting point in the individual building's functionality. He created such well-functioning and straightforward solutions that, at first glance, one might risk overlooking the genius.
