<p>bien (the bee), tramway waiting-room and newsstand, 1904-1907.
architect: p.v. jensen-klint (1853-1930).
</p><p>trained as an engineer and later as a painter at the royal academy in copenhagen, jensen-klint was a latecomer to architecture - and what is more, largely self-taught. the tramway waiting-room is an early work in the sense that he had only completed a few houses previous to this, yet he was in his fifties when the project commenced.
</p><p>klint's entry into architecture was polemical, he didn't care for the prevailing historicism and its stucco detailing and argued in writing in favour of craft and national identity. a Danish ruskinian, you could say, and very quickly a whole generation of young architects rallyed around him, making him honoury member of their break-away "free institute of architects", a rebellion against the power and values of the royal academy.
</p><p>the bee is an odd work, a masonry oval in a busy traffic junction in central copenhagen, but as striking as his buildings often are - and high on the list of structures I remember from childhood visits to the capital.
</p>
stylistically, it is related to jugendstil but in that peculiar and crude Danish version known as "skønvirke" which drew on popular art and the aesthetics of artist/architect thorvald bindesbøll.
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