Poul Erik Thyrring’s private home

Poul Erik Thyrring's private home features a lattice of red-painted wood around grey corrugated fibre-cement sheets. The house has a clear composition of structures and it is carefully integrated into the landscape in the middle of a forest with a view over a valley.

The house reflects an architectural style that came to characterise the institutional buildings of the Danish welfare state: Brutalism. The word Brutalism is derived from the French beton brût, meaning raw concrete. The architectural style has set a clear footprint on Danish building culture. The style is undecorated, raw and contradictory, but also tactile, honest and community-oriented. Despite this honesty, many find Brutalist works hard to appreciate and understand.

Brutalism is heavy, imposing and linked to a time when a Socialist agenda prevailed in intellectual circles. Poul Erik Thyrring and like-minded architects created a more organic Brutalism, which managed to embrace the characteristics of a location and set a humanitarian agenda in the massive buildings of the welfare state.

Realdania By & Byg has acquired the house to secure an example of a position and an approach to building which is central to the narrative of Danish architecture and understanding of the built environment around us.

Poul Erik Thyrring's private home features a lattice of red-painted wood around grey corrugated fibre-cement sheets. The house has a clear composition of structures and it is carefully integrated into the landscape in the middle of a forest with a view over a valley.

The house reflects an architectural style that came to characterise the institutional buildings of the Danish welfare state: Brutalism. The word Brutalism is derived from the French beton brût, meaning raw concrete. The architectural style has set a clear footprint on Danish building culture. The style is undecorated, raw and contradictory, but also tactile, honest and community-oriented. Despite this honesty, many find Brutalist works hard to appreciate and understand.

Brutalism is heavy, imposing and linked to a time when a Socialist agenda prevailed in intellectual circles. Poul Erik Thyrring and like-minded architects created a more organic Brutalism, which managed to embrace the characteristics of a location and set a humanitarian agenda in the massive buildings of the welfare state.

Realdania By & Byg has acquired the house to secure an example of a position and an approach to building which is central to the narrative of Danish architecture and understanding of the built environment around us.