My childhood in a Kubeflex Holiday Home

My childhood home was one of my grandfather’s houses, a Kubeflex. A system of identical room-sized units, Kubeflex was designed in 1969–70 for N.S. Høm, a manufacturer of prefab houses. The idea was to enable ordinary people without building skills to design and build their own holiday home, expanding it as the need arose. Kubeflex was never put into production, but my father placed the show house near the beach in a holiday development in the south of Zealand. The house stood out among the other holiday homes in the area. The side facing the street had no windows, just a sequence of identical cubes. Most people thought it looked uninhabited, perhaps resembling a public toilet – or an ice cream stall. Inside, however, large glass panels offered open views of the garden and towards the sea.

Geometry and Nature
Entering the identical Kubeflex cubes of 3.36 x 3.36 x 3.36 metres was a special experience. My grandfather and Ellen Waade, the project director, clearly made a systematic effort to fit everything into a carefully planned grid. This sort of geometric space with balanced dimensions brings a sense of calm. Later in life, I have associated this stringency with a very creative space.

This geometric approach was complemented by my grandfather’s organic universe, nature pouring in through giant picture windows measuring the full width and height of the cube. The house was a single row of five cubes with one cube installed at a right angle to the second one in the sequence. That made it possible to divide the plot into small gardens and sheltered nooks. This emphasis on nature is a characteristic feature of my grandfather’s architecture.

As a child, I never gave any of this much thought. I just remember that it was easy to get in if I had left my key behind: all I had to do was shift one of the sliding doors up a little and to the side, and I was inside. The roof was very complex, clad with thick plastic foil to keep the rain out: a flat surface with lots of canals, where I loved spending time as a young boy, hanging out with the birds and insects. A funny building that gave something back and stimulated my imagination and creativity. Not unlike Bjarke Ingels’s decision to include a ski slope and a climbing wall in his design of a power plant a few years ago. I thought it was fun to poke holes in the plastic foil; that made the rain come pouring in.

An Aesthetic, Original Cube
The house was not just a cube, it was a series of aesthetic, original cubes, each with its particular function. My brother and I shared a room. It was not big, but I remember it as enormous. It was so simple and straightforward. All I had was a bed. When drawing or reading, I usually sat on the floor. My parents’ bedroom was a similar cube. The next cube was the living room, reserved for a TV set and books. The dining room, which was only used for meals, had a table designed by my grandfather for ASKO with green Ant chairs – a set I still have in my own home today. The kitchen was just a kitchen, very tidy and organized. It was a minimalist home. There was virtually no clutter, since that would have made the house unliveable. It imposed order on our life and the space we lived in. Today, I am not a very organized person. But in my design, I strive for the strict geometry and sense of calm and order I grew up with, as expressed, for example, in my bird watching towers, constructed of wooden slats.

Garden and Building
My grandfather was an accomplished and passionate gardener and landscape designer. He is quoted as saying that if he got a new life, he would like to be a gardener. My father, on the other hand, did not share this interest, so the garden at the Kubeflex house took on a natural, uncultivated appearance. Again, however, my grandfather’s orderly architecture came to the rescue, and even a man with no landscaping talent was able to create a garden that matched the building. Later, I based the garden at our house in Hellerup on the same concept: an orderly grid with a variety of plants and cubic raised beds. Dividing the garden into different spaces makes it appear larger and deeper. As nature eats its way into the orderly grid, the result is a controlled organic expression, exactly as in my grandfather’s gardens.

Kubeflex at Trapholt
When I grew older and was expected to take over the Kubeflex house, I felt unsure whether I really wanted to maintain this project. Architects often came to the house to photograph it. During a meeting with Peter Meyer, the then director of the Trapholt museum of modern art, craft and design, as I was enjoying the view of the Kolding Fjord inlet, I had a vision: imagine if my Kubeflex holiday home could be relocated here. Maybe artists could stay in it while they were exhibiting. Visitors could view the house from above and below, like a work of art. When I mentioned the idea to Peter Meyer a few days later, he was enthusiastic, and we initiated the process of moving and renovating the house. Today, it is beautifully situated, exactly where I dreamed of, and the entire world can stop by and see how we lived.

Excerpt from the catalogue Arne Jacobsens Kubeflex Trapholt 2018

“Around the turn of the millennium, the Trapholt museum of modern art, craft and design initiated a graphic design collaboration with designer Tobias Jacobsen, a grandson of Arne Jacobsen. Tobias Jacobsen told the then director of the museum Peter Meyer about the existence of the forgotten Kubeflex house, which the family was no longer using. Trapholt saw that the Kubeflex house would make an invaluable addition to the museum’s existing collection of modern art and design and decided to acquire it. As a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art, it could present Arne Jacobsen’s architecture and design at once. After the agreement was signed in 2003, the house was broken into its individual modules and transported to a hall in Vonsild south of Kolding, where it was renovated in preparation of being rebuilt at Trapholt. In early summer 2005, Trapholt opened the Kubeflex house, which now has a stunning view of Kolding Fjord. The house was decorated with Arne Jacobsen designs: textiles, furniture, lamps and practical objects.”