Even the most dilettantish of architecture buffs will nod knowingly at any of mention of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye outside of Paris, or of Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat in the Czech Republic. But mention Arne Korsmo’s Villa Stenersen in Oslo, and you’re likely to elicit nothing but head scratching. Like those other modernist residences, Villa Stenersen is a white, flat-roofed, functionalist structure built from reinforced concrete at the behest of a rich client in the early part of the last century. But Villa Stenersen doesn’t have the international acclaim or immediate recognizability of those others — something we’re doing our small part to remedy today. For our money, Villa Stenersen is warmer, more interesting, more fun, and — dare we say? — more Sight Unseen than those other two icons of modern architecture.
We first came across Villa Stenersen on a trip to Norway in 2016 — pretty sure we plugged “iconic houses Oslo” into Google, and it was the first thing that popped up — and immediately fell in love with the corrugated wall, the glass bricks, the bright blue facade, the free-standing columnal fireplace, and, of course, the colors. Our visit there was so magical that when we heard one of our favorite photographers, Tekla Severin, was visiting Oslo, we implored her to photograph the house for us in all its waiting-to-be-refurbished glory. Read on to find out more about this under-the-radar Scandinavian gem.
Villa Stenersen was commissioned as a family residence in the late 1930s by Rolf Stenersen, a Norwegian stockbroker who had amassed a huge collection of modern art. It was designed, says Gudrun Eidsvik — the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design curator who gave us our tour — as a villa for receptions. “This was and is a really high-society neighborhood, and the house often played host to parties with artists and authors and theater people. The foyer was quite empty — they needed that space to be free — and the bar was essential.”
When we visited the house in 2016, this wall was painted a pale pink, and the bar a more pastel yellow. Upon Tekla’s visit, it had been returned to something closer to Korsmo’s original vision.
“Originally the house was more boring in its form,” says Eidsvik. “There were no circular forms at all. What you see now came in the latest phase of Korsmo’s process. We have a lot of drawings that show a strictly straight façade.”
The curved entryway — which mimics both the fireplace and the circular stairwell — is one our favorite elements of the house.
The original drawing for Villa Stenersen also indicated that the main floor was supposed to be composed entirely of glass bricks — no windows. Korsmo had worked with glass bricks before, but never on such a massive scale.
The two sculptures in the Villa Stenersen garden are made by Danish artist Gerhard Henning. Famous Norwegian artists in the Stenersen collection include Olav Strømme, Jakob Weidemann, Arne Ekeland, and Edvard Munch; Stenersen was Munch’s biggest patron. Stenersen’s art collection is now housed in a museum in the center of Oslo.
Most of the other houses in the neighborhood where Villa Stenersen was built are made from wood. The design of the house was met with howls of protest when it was first completed in 1939.
There is also some indication that Korsmo and Stenersen were at odds regarding how much emphasis ought to be given to the artworks. Korsmo intended the stairwell as the main gallery space, topped as it is by a skylight.
The gallery room, which would have at one time been lined with drawings and paintings by Munch, lies on the other side of the glass bricks. The family’s residences — including the nursery and master bedroom — were located on the topmost floor.
#deskgoals
“The architect often described the blue color in the library as his desire to pull the sky into the room,” says Eidsvik. “It’s now called Korsmo blue. The pink here is also a typical color for Korsmo. He doesn’t say anywhere what he was inspired by, but he was really into botany. His father was a botanist, and his wife once described her husband as having a disturbed impression of color — in a good way. Intuitive and sensitive more than academic.”
“Korsmo was into nature, grass, seeds — everything that we don’t normally associate with this strict period of architectural history.”
“The Scandinavian colors from early Modernism can be said to be deeper and more saturated than, for instance, French or Dutch examples from that time,” explains Eidsvik. “Korsmo had an obsession with blue but also with more unexpected choices, like silver, gold, and bright green. He had a subtle way of organizing the colors and contrasting them in a way that didn’t overwhelm the art works.”
The bar downstairs is original to the house, as is the integrated bedroom furniture seen here. But much of the furniture was taken in the Nazi occupation during World War II. “It’s my theory that the Nazis didn’t use it as an officer villa because of its style,” says Eidsvik. “They considered it modern in an unacceptable way. Instead, they used it for babies of German fathers and Norwegian mothers — 34 newborn babies grew up in Villa Stenersen.”
Stenersen fled to Sweden during the war, but came back in 1949 and lived in the house until 1974. Towards the end of his life, he donated the house to the Norwegian government, intending it to be used as the prime minister’s residence.
However, only one prime minister has ever lived in the house, and now it is a museum run by the government.
If you’re ever in Oslo, do yourself a favor and schedule a tour of Villa Stenersen. The house is open every Sunday, May through October. Happy iconic house hunting!
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