Paper presented at SAH 2024,
Albuquerque, New Mexico,
April 17-21, 2024.
Albuquerque, New Mexico,
April 17-21, 2024.
Nordic architects have monopolised the ideas of sustainability, climate resilience and ecology, often expressed through the abundant use of timber. The idea of “Scandinavian design” instantly evokes images of sleek mid-century minimalist shapes in natural woods. While timber is a material intrinsic to the Nordic context, this paper argues that the idea of timber as a “natural” and “ecological” material was largely produced. In the 20th century, artificial forestry practices imported to Scandinavia from the United States eradicated traditional logging and profoundly transformed vast territories and ecologies. Solid timber construction was substituted with imported framing methods, which required new artificial insulation materials. With scientific advances of the military effort, timber’s natural fibres were infused with a wide range of chemical substances. Plywood, fiberboard, and engineered timbers modified wood’s chemical, material and physical properties. In this context, the return of timber as a “natural” and “ecological” Nordic material was an event staged largely by commercial timber producers. The Norwegian Wood Prize, established by trade associations of wooden producers, was to promote the use of timber in architectural designs. Starring “ecological” designs of Knut Knutsen accompanied by phenomenological essays by Christian Norberg-Schulz, the Prize publications re-framed timber as a new national Norwegian material.
By zooming into specific material artefacts, their physical properties and international provenance, the paper unwraps the layers of production of Norwegian timber as “natural” and “environmental” material. Engaging with its many systems of production, the paper aims to deconstruct contemporary narratives of timber sustainability. Mediating between different scales, this paper probes a new methodology for architectural history, more attentive to architecture’s global ecologies and environmental effects.