Nearing the end of four years of doctoral studies on heritage and communities of post-war housing, in ‘From Camden to Copenhagen and Oslo’ OCCAS scholar Tom Davies looks at the relationships between Neave Brown’s Alexandra Road, Peter Tábori’s Highgate New Town and the Selvaag Company’s Vestli, East Oslo through to the work of Norwegian/Danish architects Anne Tinne Kielland Friis and Mogens Lønborg Friis. Through this two closely related post-war traditions of community focused ‘hill-housing’ will be explored, moving through the links between Danish and Californian Modernism, the influence of vernacular architecture and antiquity from Tábori’s studies of hill-towns in Italy to the Friis’ work as archaeologists in the ‘50s. Through this a picture emerges of two warm and humanist approaches to architecture, notably housing whose buildings have stood the test of time. The talk will be illustrated by photographic material from the Kielland Friis archives, showing buildings under construction and immediately after completion, and Davies’ doctoral case-study work.

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