Korsmo was undoubtedly influenced by these new ideas, as in 1928 he travelled to Continental Europe with a grant from the Henrichsen Foundation. His impressions during the trip to Europe unleashed his artistic talent: "As I travelled about, I felt like a child leafing through a lovely picture book - delighted with all the new sights. I sorted and discarded - very little remained - but my eyes learned to see - perhaps my mind learned to think along with them."
The journey brought him into contact with many of the leading architects of the time - such as Mendelsohn, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn and Willem Marinus Dudok.
In 1928 he married his first wife Åse Thiis. In 1929 he started his own practice together with Sverre Aasland. They mostly designed detached houses, but also exhibitions and interiors. Korsmo developed an architecture with a strong sense of the site with all its qualities, such as light, space, colour, form, material, in short everything man must take into consideration in order to be able to dwell in the true sense of the word. According to the great Norwegian theorist of architecture, Norberg-Schulz, this was Korsmo´s ultimate goal: to help people to dwell.
At the request of Siegfried Giedeon in 1950, Christian Norberg-Schulz asked Korsmo to head a Norwegian section of the CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d´Àrchitecture Moderne), and Korsmo accepted with enthusiasm. The group was called PAGON (Progressive Arkitekters Gruppe Oslo Norge) and consisted of Christian Nordberg-Schulz, Peter Andreas Munch Mellbye, Sverre Fehn, Geir Grung, Odd Østbye, Håkon Mjelva and Robert Esdaile. On several occasions Jørn Utzon also joined the group. Their natural meeting place was Arne and Grete Korsmo´s home in Løkenveien on Bygdøy, Oslo. The group was active until 1956.
Arne Korsmo taught at SHKS from 1936 to 1941. Here he met his second wife Grete Prytz, the daughter of the school´s principal, Jacob Prytz. They were married in 1945 and together they developed a fruitful cooperation that was to last for several years. Together they developed their "working-home" in Planetveien - where Grete Prytz Kittelsen still lives and which she has carefully preserved.
In 1949, Korsmo and his second wife Grete Prytz went to the USA on an Fulbright scholarship. There he also met and established friendships with great architects of the time such as Louis Kahn, Mies van der Rohe, Charles Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Gropius.
Korsmo worked as a professor at NTH from 1956 to 1968. His lectures bore clear evidence of his thorough knowledge of contemporary theory of design and architecture. He was an inspiring and significant person for his students, the young generation of designers and architects. At NTH he also met his third wife, the young architect Hanne Refsdal - who he married in 1965, and with whom he had two daughters.
Korsmo received a number of honours in the course of his career; among others the Sundt award in 1933, and the Houen Foundation award twice, in 1937 and in 1939. He was made a knight of the French Legion of Honour for the Norwegian pavilion at the Paris Exhibition in 1937 and 1939, and was, together with his second wife Grete Prytz, awarded the Grand Prix at the Triennale in Milan in 1954.
In 1968 Korsmo participated in a conference for designers in Huampani near Cuzco in Peru. He travelled together with his second wife, Grete. He had always dreamt of getting to see the ruins of the monumental megalithic architecture of the Incas. But having struggled with poor health for several years, Arne Korsmo ended his life on this arduous trip to Machu Picchu in Peru on 29 August 1968.
Korsmo´s main goal, to create a meaningful way of dwelling, is perhaps expressed most clearly in his own home in Planetveien. The three houses, designed by Korsmo and Norberg-Schulz in the period between 1952 and 1955, are situated on a hill in the north-western outskirts of Oslo, in one of the most attractive residential areas of the city. The layout of the houses is based on a modern skeleton construction of steel.
These modular structures using frames allow the plans and the elevations of the houses to be organised with great freedom. The two architects based their design on a project method perfected by Korsmo, called "Hjemmets mekkano" (the Meccano house). This is an analytic method which Korsmo defined as a "working method and analysis of man, the home and the house - the aim of which is to give the individual, the family and the environment a chance to free themselves from passivity and become consciously active in dwelling and building."
The possibility to change the layout of the rooms and the treatment of the facades was intended by Korsmo to stimulate the users´ participation in dwelling and building, as well as underlining the possibility of adapting the house to the continuously changing needs of a family.
Korsmo´s idea of a "working home" reflected his conception of human life. Here dwelling and working were combined in a whole, as an expression of living. Work was not just a way to earn money, it should reflect a way of living. In this sense, Planetveien served as a framework for the interaction between the natural surroundings, which are clearly an integrated part of the architecture, and the family life and activities going on within the three houses.
The composition and geometry of the design of Planetveien, upon which the system of construction is based, is quite simple: the small terrace forms a long, low compact body on which the three volumes that constitute the sleeping areas are grafted, allowing the individual properties to be identified from the outside.
Christian Nordberg-Schulz presents Planetveien in Byggekunst as follows; "From the forest these houses look like three independent cubes with a living-room on the ground-floor and the bedrooms upstairs. The house in the middle, Korsmo´s house, was with no doubt the most exciting, but it was also the most vulnerable from the constructive point of view. In order to get a living-room without pillars, Korsmo had to abandon the constructive rhythm with 12 feet spans, adopted in the other two houses, and increased the dimension of the steel-skeleton. As a result, the construction became five times more expensive than the others (house of Norberg-Schulz)...
The skeleton frame made it possible to have both a free floor plan and a free facade. The building elements as well as its accessories were modular, so that a standard compositional system would be used. In this way, the Meccano houses enabled the new, modern and free human being to shape his domestic space and his life. Human beings should always be active and creative and Korsmo tried to realise this ideal in his own house... Home and work was combined: Arne had his office on the first floor, his wife Grete had her workshop on the basement floor... The house of Korsmo was therefore an expression of the modern human being´s wish to do what he wants in his life. It was designed as a flexible constructive system with certain defined modules satisfying the experiments of his 'didactic spatial laboratory' Planetveien represented the first introduction of the characteristic Mies` steel-and-glass architecture in Norway. It also represented a new and visionary way of looking at the dwelling. Korsmo was in his own time regarded as somewhat avant-gardist. However, his ideas of dwelling and his architecture has been of great significance for the following generations, and for the development of dwelling. Planetveien was an important base in his teaching. Here friends, students and colleagues met, visionary designs were drawn up, and the improvement of dwelling was the subject of lively debate. The house is a manifestation of Korsmo´s theory of architecture and practice."
Christian Norberg-Schulz characterises Planetveien as both an interpretation of the traditional vernacular architecture and as modern architecture. By avoiding means of superficial imitation, and instead going to the source of the means, a "natural" atmosphere emerged. At the same time, Planetveien is modern, this being expressed in the interior as a place that comprises the essence of the modern conception of space.
For Arne Korsmo, building was much more than a problem related to square metres; for him architecture was poetry. A building is not only a collection of parts, but something that speaks to us, and which according to Korsmo "instils a touching and stimulating pleasure in the mind of the man who creates".
Korsmo was, as Norberg-Schulz says, "a man endowed with a rare sensitivity, combined with the ability and will to transform what he perceived into objects which make life better for all of us." In Korsmo´s own words: "The simple gleams from friendly human minds are what lay the foundation for the entire larger context and therefore each object, each house becomes not only an article of use, but a symbol, a compelling symbol with which man identifies through use. In the world of objects, man seeks, as in a mirror, an image of his ability to choose and to express himself, a proof of his existence." < BACK
Silje Skrondal