ARCHIVINGARCHITECTURALDRAWINGSOFHÖGNASIGURÐARDÓTTIR

The family of Högna Sigurðardóttir donated her architectural drawings along with documents, letters and photographs to the Museum og Design and Applied Art in 2019.

In our open research space visitors can observe the work as it is removed form the wooden box which arrived from Paris in 2020 , photographed, filed and finally packed for preservation. Hólmfríður Ósmann Jónsdóttir and Hrefna Björg Þorsteinsdóttir, the founders of the architectural office Arkibúllan and good friends of Högna are taking care og the archiving.

Högna was born in the Westman Islands in 1929. She studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1949–1960 where she received recognition for the school’s best graduation project for her idea for a Horticultural Farm in Hveragerði.

Högna lived and worked most of her life in France but she designed five villas that were built in Iceland in the seventies which have all become a valuable part of of Icelandic architectural history. The best known is Bakkaflöt 1 in Garðabær. This house was chosen as one of the 100 most significant buildings of the 20th century in northern and central Europe for a publication of an international overview of architecture. Högna also designed a swimming pool in Kópavogur but only a part of her vision for this project was materialized. The Icelandic turf house, weaving of landscape and building, contemporary use of concrete and Brutalist features are prominent in her work.

Project managers: Hólmfríður Ósmann Jónsdóttir and Hrefna Björg Þorsteinsdóttir

Article on Högna by Guja Dögg can be found here:

https://www.artforum.com/passages/guja-doegg-hauksdottir-on-hoegna-sigur…