Wenche Selmer was employed in the office of Arnstein Arneberg in Oslo from 1946-47, in the office of Marcel Lod in Paris in the years 1947-48, and in the office of Arne Pedersen and Reidar Lund in Oslo from 1948-54. At the office of Pedersen and Lund office, she was responsible for both the planning and the completion of the Norwegian student house in the Citč Universitaire in Paris.
In 1954 Wenche married architect Jens Andreas Selmer. She established her own practice the same year. Her own house, which she designed in collaboration with her husband, received the Sundt Prize for outstanding architecture in 1963. The Selmers' wooden architecture in general was granted the Timber Award in 1969.
Wenche Selmer designed some of the most distinguished Norwegian timber architecture and small-scale houses. Her houses remain as manifestations of life, unpretentious and low-key. Within a limited budget, she was able to create practical and harmonious spaces.
From 1976 to 1987 Wenche Selmer taught as a senior lecturer at the Oslo School of Architecture. Her philosophy of teaching was not based on an authoritarian approach, but on empathy, as she was preoccupied with seeing her students and bringing forward talents. Expressed in her own words; "as a teacher I think one has to be interested in people. You have to be open and aware... It is a joy to see a student who has talent, but one should understand that such things are not always apparent right away."
Wenche Selmer was herself a student of Knut Knutsen, and credited him as the architect who had influenced her work most profoundly. In 1993 she received the Norwegian State scholarship for older artists.
Wenche Selmer mostly built detached houses or summerhouses. As a mother of small children in the 1950s, she chose to turn down extensive projects. However, this gave her a deeper insight into the problem of the dwelling and its basic needs, all within a limited financial budget. Her own house clearly reflects all this knowledge in its refined simplicity. The house manifests her architectural philosophy, also characterised by Elisabeth Tostrup as "architectural thoughtfulness". Thoughtfulness in the sense of the technical elaboration and precision of the architecture, and thoughtfulness in its artistic refinement - both aspects enhanced by a particular empathy and skill with regard to what can be called social and environmental factors.
Wenche Selmer is well-known for her respect for place and surroundings. Her houses are not "invisible" but designed with utmost care to cultivate the relationship between building and terrain, manifesting a modesty in terms of limiting the extent of construction and encroachment in landscape. In an interview she explained: "Where one places the house in the surrounding terrain is a main point for me. I almost always experience a form in relation to the place. It can be in relation to a stone or a field, but there has to be something at the site that gets the project going."
She always perceived site as a matter of form, it could be a rock, or a small plain. In some instances, she even spent the night in a sleeping bag on the site in order to experience the sunrise on the spot. She was especially concerned with spatial coherence or continuity as a strategy to achieve favourable spatial quality. A characteristic architectural means to achieve this was her ability to create a close relationship between the building and the outdoor space.
In addition to environmental "thoughtfulness", an essential feature of her architecture was her awareness of the people who would live in and use the house. Together with her client she analysed the site, the idea of the house, primary and secondary needs, aesthetic and functional aspects. The aim was to create a well-founded project. Many of her clients later told her that they experienced this planning time as a very stimulating and instructive period. Most of her houses had low cost budgets and it was necessary to make the most of the space available. She explained; "Because of this I try never to give away a square meter to something that isn't attractive or useful."
Trosterudstien 1 is a small-scale house, designed by Wenche Selmer and her husband in 1963. The house is organised as a long rectangular space; facing the trees and the garden outside, it is well adjusted to the terrain of the site. Like in most of Selmerīs houses, wood is the prevailing material. Our gaze is consciously drawn towards the garden through the large windows in the front. These windows also function as sliding-doors, allowing a close contact between inside and outside.
Elisabeth Tostrup presents and explains Wenche Selmerīs house as follows: "Trosterudstien 1 in Oslo displays an outstanding example of the delicate play of deducting and selecting measures of architectural articulation. The relationship between the size of windows and openings and the space inside is balanced effectively so that the actual dimensions of the rooms can be reduced. The dining area or niche, only 2.40 metres wide, takes advantage of a large window placed at a height that enables the people seated at the table to have a panorama view of the garden. Then the entire table can be wheeled a few feet to the kitchen area, and serve as an auxiliary table for kitchen work.
The windows in the bedrooms are placed and shaped in such a manner that one does not notice that the rooms are in fact narrow. Another central factor is the combined spaces for living and working, in which the large sliding-doors make the garden, which is sheltered from the road by an evergreen spruce hedge, a part of the interior.
A look at the interior confirms how the use of wood as a structural principle constitutes the main architectural, and even ornamental, component, as in the system of double main beams and secondary beams. Pinewood is used in panel boarding on the walls and other fittings in the entire house. The overall idea is that the material itself constitutes a major architectural means, a source of beauty, and surfaces are only treated when they need protection.
The house is rare in its denial of bourgeois lifestyle, in its minimalism. However, the intricate and refined measures of architectural composition that bring about the apparent simplicity make it all the more interesting. This particular attitude, this skill, is something that Selmer cultivated and displayed in all her works using wood as the main instrument."
As a female architect in the 1950s, Wenche Selmer was preoccupied with finding good solutions for the rooms in the house that are often neglected by architects, such as the kitchen, the washing- and work-rooms. Architects have focused primarily on the large building tasks. The small-scale architecture that affects everybody has often been perceived as less prestigious than the larger building projects. As a female architect Wenche Selmer was able to influence a previously neglected area in a more proper direction. Her work contributes to the creation of milieus which combine aesthetic distinction with practical solutions that enhance the quality of everyday life.
Wenche Selmerīs own house reflects the main features in her architectural philosophy, and Trosterudstien also functioned as an important pedagogic means, as a convincing argument in her own teaching at the Oslo School of Architecture.
She followed the line of influential architects such as Magnus Poulsson, Fredrik Konow Lund and especially Knut Knutsen, who all practised the difficult art of making tradition contemporary. Wenche Selmer was one of the few women who gained a notable position among the renowned Norwegian architects in the twentieth century. < BACK
Silje Skrondal