The Magician and the Shoemaker - Debates on Open Form and Marxist-Leninism in Norway around 1970

Abstract

The thesis begins with the observation of a radical, political impulse appearing in the architectural debate in Norway in 1970, expressed by the movements of Open Form and Marxist-Leninist architects. Compared to the preceding modernist critique of the 1960s, this radical-political shift was stronger in its rhetoric, more dismissive of its opponents, and more radical in its political argumentation.

The thesis studies how this shift manifested in fierce debate in Norwegian architecture magazines and how it addressed, and was in turn fueled by, a changing professional reality, where the role of the postwar architect-specialist was threatened from several sides. The intersection of architecture and society became the crux of a new form of systemic critique that explored how architecture was organized both as intellectual and productive work in society.