Development

Through the nineteenth century there were no main thoroughfares leading through Mørkhøj, making the area very isolated. This meant that the district had very little contact with others, and the inhabitants were very much self-sufficient. This resulted in a district where city development was absent for many years (Mørkhøj Kirke ¶ Mørkhøjs historie). As seen in the previous map, Mørkhøj does not see the same development as Copenhagen and the surrounding districts. But around the 1930s city planners and architects saw new opportunities in the undeveloped area of Mørkhøj and new modern buildings started to pop-up in the area. Today, Mørkhøj is therefore dominated by many modern and social building blocks especially from the 1950s. Architects, such as Vilhem Lauritzen, designed many of the buildings in Gladsaxe including Mørkhøj School (Gladsaxe ¶ Glimt af Mørkhøj Bys historie).

In 1954, the new school of Mørkhøj was built but already a few years later it was expanded. Architect Vilhelm Lauritzen was known for his functionalist style. Even

Development of Mørkhøj though the school today seems worn, it was a very modern aula school of its time. Today, the modernistic approach in general can seem outdated and out of human scale with its straight lines and large, mowed lawns (Corbusier 1943). Even though Vilhelm Lauritzen was very engaged in the modernistic debate in relation to buildings and city planning, the buildings he created were always very humane and democratic (Arkitekturpolitik, Gladsaxe, 2021). This is expressed by the scale of the school building, which is in only one floor with many direct accesses to the outside, with large windows for good lighting, and with many details. The values of Vilhelm Lautitzen was to create functional architecture that improves quality of human lives with the best possible solutions for the location and its users (Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects, online 2021). It is clear that a focus on choosing good materials and having a lot of green around the building was important when designing Mørkhøj skole. The school is not a listed building but it is categorised as preservation worthy (Gladsaxe municipality, spatial map).

600 m

1956

After 1930s development of the area took off. The new school of Mørkhøj is build next to the bare fields with a lot of open space and air. 1958

New modern social housing is created beside the school. Mørkhøj is now a densely build district. The school area is marked with yellow.

600 m

The building typology has changed over time as extensions of the school building have been made at different decades. The building now creates a more divided school ground with sharp borders between an inner and outer schoolyard than in the original design. The design of the landscape was originally very modernistic in its style but a large part of the original design have been changed since then. There are some remains from the original landscape, though, such as the football field encircled by tree rows, the characteristic beech hedges in the inner schoolyard, and other mowed lawns and hedges, which is a typical feature of the time.

1960s

1980s 2000s

1958 (Close) 1:1500

The building is encircled by the landscape creating a strong connection between the indoor and outdoors. Many changes of the landscape have been made since the original design. The vegetation features still present at site today are marked with dashed line. Extension of the school building is likewise marked with solid line.

100 m