H jhuse i Danmark 1950-2010

Med udgangspunkt i det moderne h jhus' f dsel i det 19. rhundredes USA samt f nomenets internationale historie, belyser artiklen h jhusets historie og udbredelse i Danmark. Fra velf rdsstatens funktionalistiske boligkolosser i midten af det tyvende rhundrede, over 1970'erne og 80'ernes modreaktion og 'sm t er godt'-mentalitet til de seneste rtiers individuelle og amerikansk inspirerede prestige-projekter med vartegnsambitioner, s ttes den danske udvikling ind i en europ isk kontekst og prioriteret bevidsthedshistorisk forklaringsramme. Siden midten af det tyvende rhundrede har erhvervsh jhuse i bycenteret h rt til de mest karakteristiske tr k ved storbyers udvikling verden over, men i Danmark er den slags h jhuse endnu relativt sj ldne. Ogs i danske byer peger udviklingen i de seneste r dog i retning af flere h je, markante byggerier i eller n r bymidten. : In recent decades, the distinctive urban setup, with a nucleus dominated by clusters of office towers, has spread to most parts of the world. Economic growth and structural conditions are obviously of fundamental importance for this development, but as the present article shows, the limited construction of such centrally located high-rise buildings in Danish (and European) cities may also be put into a framework of history of consciousness. The first modern skyscrapers were erected in American cities in the late 19th Century, but it was not until the middle of the 20th Century that a related, but dissimilar development gained momentum in Europe and Denmark. In Copenhagen, as well as in other European cities, office towers fitted badly into the the maze of streets in the city centres, and they also conflicted with the laws that restricted building heights. Because of the post-war shortage of housing and the rapid economic growth of the 1950s and -60s, the first high-rise buildings in Denmark were built in the mid-1950s in the form of suburban residential towers. Since then, these pre-fabricated concrete towers have affected the Danish townscape for better and perhaps especially for worse; and this may be one of the reasons why high-rise buildings fell into disrepute in Denmark. At any rate, the first generation of high-rise buildings in this country was mostly suburban, and a child of European modernism and functionalism. Due to a fear of Americanization and the ruining of Copenhagen"s "unique" low skyline, only a few "American" highrise buildings were allowed to be built in Copenhagen"s inner city in this period. From the early 1970s until 1990, practically no high-rise buildings were constructe