The Architect’s Lament (Writ in Stone): Stockholm, 1914

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 870

Years ago when I lived in DC,  a neighbor in Georgetown who was suitably upset about being told how he could decorate the front of his townhouse spray-painted the rules and regs of private house decoration right on the front of his home.  In colors, urban-graffiti style, about 10 feet high.  As it turns out, his (influential) neighbors were wrong about how restricted the colors were that he had chosen to paint his house, and that he was perfectly within his rights to answer his complaint by painting that n the front of his house.  He made his point.  For several years. 

 

An extreme case of venting and protest—in the pre-mass communication era—was found in Stockholm.  The façade of the house designed by the architect Klemming is decorated with his 40-foot high incised complaint against the building bureaucracy of the city.  As it turns out Klemming was not allowed to proceed as he wished, running into regulations preventing him from carrying out the design that he wanted.  Defeated, he built what was allowed, and then found a way to revenge—ironically, there was no regulation to keep him from his permanent, stone-cold anti-reg voice. 

 

I suspect that few architects, or builders, would disagree with Kemmling’s sentiments.

 (The text is clickable)

The rant reads, in part:

“A year was quite enough

For the building of this house,

But a long time was needed

To get permission for it.

Three years were passed

Before granted it was.

The fight was won at last,

But the wonds caused were severe.

To give full account of

 how the fight proceeded

this space would be too small…”

And ends:

“Oh Land , oh Town, consider well,

When bills of law are passed, lest private right be violated

And working spirit killed.”