Flemming Lassen was a Modernist Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 architect and designer, working within the idiom of the International Style

International style (architecture)

The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...

. Among his most notable buildings are libraries and cultural centres. He was the brother of Mogens Lassen

Mogens Lassen

Mogens Lassen was a Modernist Danish architect and designer, working within the idiom of the International Style. He mainly designed residential buildings, both in the form of single-family houses and apartment blocks...

, also an architect.

Early life

Flemming Lassen was born on 23 February 1901 in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 into an artistic family. His father Hans Vilhelm Lassen was a decorative painter and his mother, Ingeborg Winding, was a painter. He trained as a mason before completing his education at the Technical School. After working in a number of different architecture studios, in the 1930s Lassen set up office with Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen

Arne Emil Jacobsen, usually known as Arne Jacobsen, was a Danish architect and designer. He is remembered for contributing so much to architectural Functionalism as well as for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple but effective chair designs.-Early life and education:Arne Jacobsen was born...

 with whom in 1929 he had won a Danish Architects Association

Architects' Association of Denmark

The Architects' Association of Denmark , or simply AA, is an independent professional body for Danish architects. It was founded in founded om 21 November 1879 with the prime duty to advance and promote architectural quality by influencing the planning and design of our physical environment in the...

 competition for designing the "House of the Future". Built full scale at the subsequent exhibition in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

's Forum

Forum Copenhagen

Forum Copenhagen in Frederiksberg in Central Copenhagen, Denmark, is a large, rentable faire building, which hosts a large variety of concerts, markets and exhibitions, among other things. The venue can hold 10,000 people....

, it was a spiral-shaped, flat-roofed house in glass and concrete, incorporating a private garage

Garage (house)

A residential garage is part of a home, or an associated building, designed or used for storing a vehicle or vehicles. In some places the term is used synonymously with "carport", though that term normally describes a structure that is not completely enclosed.- British residential garages:Those...

, a boathouse

Boathouse

A boathouse is a building especially designed for the storage of boats, normally smaller craft for sports or leisure use. These are typically located on open water, such as on a river. Often the boats stored are rowing boats...

 and a helicopter pad

Helipad

Helipad is a common abbreviation for helicopter landing pad, a landing area for helicopters. While helicopters are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard surface away from obstacles where a helicopter can safely...

. Other striking features were windows that rolled down like car windows, a conveyor tube for the mail and a kitchen stocked with ready-made meals.

Architecture

Together with Jacobsen, he went on to design Søllerød Town Hall

Søllerød Town Hall

Søllerød Town Hall , now renamed Rudersdal Town Hall, was built for the former Søllerød Municipality which in 2007 became part of Rudersdal Municipality, combining Søllerød and Birkerød. The building is located in the village of Søllerød some 19 km to the north of Copenhagen's city centre....

, completed in 1942 in a classical modernistic style inspired by Gunnar Asplund

Gunnar Asplund

Erik Gunnar Asplund was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a key representative of Nordic Classicism of the 1920s, and during the last decade of his life as a major proponent of the modernist style which made its breakthrough in Sweden at the Stockholm International Exhibition...

's extension of the city hall in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

. In partnership with Erik Møller

Erik Møller

Svend Erik Møller was a Danish architect.Møller used to work with the famous Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen. Together they won the competition to build the new City Hall in Aarhus, which was built from 1938 to 1942. At the same time they built another town hall in Søllerød. From 1955...

, he designed the Nyborg Library (1940), for which he was awarded the Eckersberg Medal

Eckersberg Medal

The Eckersberg Medal is an annual award of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts...

.

In the 1960s, Lassen completed a number of cultural centres and libraries including the Randers Cultural Centre, complete with a museum, a library and meeting rooms, in 1969. The three-storey rectangular building in reinforced concrete is illuminated from a central courtyard while the walls along the streets are free of windows. In the 1970s, together with his son Per Lassen, he designed a number of libraries including the public library in Lund

Lund

-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...

, Sweden, the central library in Herning

Herning

Herning Municipality is a municipality in Region Midtjylland on the Jutland peninsula in western Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 1,336 km² and a total population of 84,208...

, the library and community centre in Hvidovre

Hvidovre

Hvidovre Kommune is a municipality in Region Hovedstaden near Copenhagen on the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 22 km², and has a total population of 49,380...

 and the municipal library in Hobro

Hobro

Hobro with a population of 11,635 - is a town in Mariagerfjord municipality in Region Nordjylland on the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark....

. All display strongly Cubist

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

 lines with rather raw exteriors but with well formed, welcoming rooms.

Furniture

In the 1930s and early 1940s, with his unconventional curved designs, Lassen contributed to the development of the Danish modern

Danish modern

Danish modern, frequently capitalized as Danish Modern, is a vintage style of minimalist wood furniture from Denmark associated with the Danish design movement...

style. Always intent on simple, clearly defined lines, he also designed lamps and silverware.