Inspiration water
This summer, the exhibition “Floating Art” took place in Vejle, Denmark, with works of art in public spaces. This is not particularly remarkable, but what is more interesting is the fact that all of the exhibited works floated on water. Although this year’s Triennial in Bruges already practiced this with “Fluid City”, in Vejle the sculptures are not to be seen on the canals, but on the fjord, between the harbour and the Vejle Fjord Bridge, which crosses the seawater.
Modern artists have always been inspired by water. This also happened to the Dane Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen after he stayed at Le Corbusier’s “Fondation Swiss” in the “Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris” in 1999. It was there that the artist learned that the Swiss Le Corbusier had become known worldwide shortly before the “Fondation” was built thanks to the Villa Savoye not far from Paris. Havsteen-Mikkelsen was particularly taken with the Five Principles for a New Architecture, which Le Corbusier wanted to immortalize through the villa. Fundamental doubts arose: the dogma established in the 1920s no longer fitted into the complexity of contemporary architecture, which is why the artist came up with the idea of a “Flooded Modernity” after being invited to take part in the “Floating Art” exhibition.
Flooded modernity
As a painter, Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen has always been interested in Bauhaus architecture. He therefore created the work “Flooded Modernity”: a new building made of white-painted wooden panels, Plexiglas windows and polystyrene, which he sank into the fjord in front of the architectural silhouette of Bølgen. The chosen symbol for “flooded modernity” is naturally a strong motif.
The topographical circumstances, which Havsteen-Mikkelsen does not mention, help here. Vejle is indeed a “fluid city”, even more so than Bruges. This is because Vejle in Jutland is not only located in the fjord delta and on two rivers, but also in the middle of a marshland. This can be seen on a city map from 1627: at a time when the Dutch were still dreaming of draining the Zuiderzee, the Danes cultivated the swamp and founded Vejle.
Living with the water
Today, the people of Vejle are aware that they will continue to be exposed to the risks of water in the future. The municipality with its 56,000 inhabitants is one of the Danish coastal towns that will be hit hardest by the effects of climate change. Downpours and storm surges will become part of everyday life. Sandbags are already stashed in the squares in the city center. But this everyday scenario is not a nightmare for the Danes. Just like in Holland, Vejle has taken precautions to divert the floodwaters into pools, canals and lakes. “Living with the water” has also become a motto for the Danes.
That’s why even “Flooded Modernity” has lost all its horror for the paddler who calmly glides past the submerged Villa Savoye.