The Age of Concrete

We choose years in the twentieth century and trace the history of architecture and planning in those years or the years around them. The first is 1915, the year of the great Reykjavík fire, when people mostly stopped building out of wood and the age of concrete began.

The next is 1930, when Iceland became sovereign, Guðjón Samúelsson designed large buildings and looked for a national architectural style. But modernism has also begun to make its way.

1945 is the year when the war ends, the city was expanding beyond Hringbraut, there was a big housing problem and the first apartment buildings were built. Churches under construction at this time caused controversy.

The 1960s is the time when the aesthetics of modernism become very dominant, from this period there are, for example, houses designed by Sigvaldi Thordarson. There, people assumed that most of the old town would be demolished and large motorways laid through it.

In 1975 people are building in Breiðholt. First rises Neðra-Breiðholt, then Efra-Breiðholt, finally the Seljahverfi. These neighborhoods are different. But it is also at this time that the fight for house protection is starting, first at the Bernhöftstorfa.