Bjarne Hammer, born 1955 1982 1983 1986 2021 Aarhus School of Architecture Arkitektgruppen Schmidt Hammer Lassen Arkitekter Studio Hammer Studio Hammer designed MIRUM for Lampas. Studio Hammer Bjarne Hammer After spending half his life at the center of Schmidt Hammer Lassen, Bjarne now works from his villa apartment in Frederiksberg, where he has set up his own sustain- able design studio, Studio Hammer. I became a technical draughtsman and then took a HF course in order to apply to Aarhus School of Architecture. At my HF course, one of my tea- chers said that you had to be good at maths to become an architect. I wasn’t particularly good at maths, so that worried me a little. However, it didn’t matter at all. At the School of Architecture I was faced with political-oriented studies. We had to read Das Kapital. It was somewhat of a startling introduction. If it provided anything, it was aware- ness that construction is politics and is driven by financial interests and mirrors the ups and downs of economic cycles. How did you come to be an architect? I grew up in the construction industry. My father was a carpenter, like my grandfather before him, and both my cousin and my uncle were architects. Conversations in our family frequently revolved around managing construction projects and navi- gating current circumstances in the construction industry. One of my favourite playgrounds as a child was the floor of the workshop with its blocks of wood and sawdust. I can’t say that I played at urban planning, but it was certainly about buil- ding up something that wasn’t there yet. All my life the smell of wood has always reminded me of something safe and positive. On my own initiative I tried to spend time during the first part of the course drawing with charcoal and learning something about materials. In the se- cond part it was finally about architecture. I had amazing teachers under the leadership of Johan Richter. In addition, I met Morten Schmidt and John Lassen. The three of us were hired by the same design studio and also worked on numerous competi- tion entries in our free time. In 1986, we secured 2 building plots in the innovative Blangstedgård construction competition in Odense. This led to the establishment of Schmidt Hammer Lassen. 87
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