The Cabin, Between Tradition and Modernity

Wenche Selmer can be seen as the great cabin architect in Norway in the post-war period, and her cabins, often designed together with her husband Jens Selmer, encapsulate this duality. They have a recognizable design, often with a traditional expression in roof form, facade, and cladding. Simultaneously, the plans are clearly modernist. The cabins are modest, often without running water, resource-efficient, and with a minimal footprint. At the same time, they are an exclusive phenomenon, located in attractive sites, in some cases on private islands.

Possible topics include

• How new ideals and ideas in planning and infrastructure have influenced holiday home development.
• Other forms of modernism, such as Selmer's cabins designed with modernist plans but featuring traditionalist expressions in their facades.
• Cabin culture, cabin life, and leisure culture.
• Cabin history in the Nordic countries in general, or specifically about Selmer and the so-called "Knutsen School".
• The cabin from a sustainability perspective, including current debates on humans and nature, such as posthumanism, the Anthropocene, and degrowth.
• Repetitions and systems: prefabricated cabins, type cabins, building systems.
• The role of female architects in post-war architectural culture. What building tasks did women undertake, and how did this shape the perception of female architects, both in general and Wenche Selmer in particular?
• Spouses and colleagues. How does collaboration between architect couples influence design and issues of ownership and signature, and how do they manage the relationship between the familial and professional?