C. F. Møller is one of the oldest and largest architectural firms in Scandinavia. Its 350 employees work at the head office in Aarhus, as well as in offices in Copenhagen, Aalborg, Oslo, Stockholm and London.
The bureau was founded by Danish architect Christian Frederik Møller in Copenhagen in 1924.
Archi.ru:
How can one get an architectural education in Denmark? Do I need to somehow prepare in advance for entering a specialized university?
Julian Weier:
- In recent years, everything has changed dramatically in this matter. Initially, in order to become an architect, in Denmark it was necessary to learn a craft, for example, a carpenter, and in the sixties and seventies people simply began to receive a higher education in architecture. At the time when I graduated from the institute, people with craft education coexisted in the profession, those who received a higher education in architecture - like me, as well as those who simply showed talent in the field of architecture, including even artists.
Do you need to pass a drawing or something like that when entering Danish architectural institutes?
- You need to pass a test that assesses the spatial thinking of the applicant. It is necessary to make some kind of abstract composition from various materials, and on its basis the ability of a person to think in space is determined. I think this is a good exam, as it allows you to see if the applicant has the skills that are important for the profession of an architect. But today applicants prepare for this test for a long time, even small art centers and schools appear where they teach how to make such a composition.
In Russian schools of architecture, a lot of emphasis is placed on the individual work of a student, while in Denmark, on the contrary, preference is given to work in a group. What do you think is better and why?
- In Denmark, group work is optional. You can work alone, but this - behind the scenes - is not encouraged. The reason is simple: in the future, one way or another, you will have to interact with other people and it is better to be prepared for this in advance. Of course, there are always students who prefer to work individually, and they even pass exams in the end, but most likely it will not be easy for them, and they will be assessed more rigorously. I believe that group work is a positive phenomenon, it helps to facilitate further professional integration, so we try to encourage it. When I was studying at the institute, I often worked either with a friend or with someone four. When you graduate, such contacts often flow into the creation of a joint workshop.
You raised an interesting topic: I just wanted to ask about how the fate of graduates usually develops: how many of them get a job in architectural bureaus, open their own workshops or work in government structures?
- It depends on the state of the economy in the country. There are a limited number of private workshop jobs. Denmark graduates 200-250 architects a year. About a third of them can get a job in the bureau, and this is the maximum. We are, of course, looking for the most talented. Everyone cannot be talented - this is obvious. Some people go to work in government agencies, but there are not many of them. The rest go to some other profession. In Denmark, architectural education is quite abstract, and then a graduate can calmly do something else.
Architecture education in Denmark is cheap, and it is very easy to enroll in specialized institutions here. To do this, you do not need to have any factual knowledge, as, for example, in medicine. Architectural education here teaches to think like an architect and work like an architect, but does not provide a specific technical base. This is a very conceptual school. At the state level, this is a good idea: to teach architecture more students than necessary, and to produce interesting and creative people who can later find themselves in some other field.
What about foreigners? If they received an architecture degree in Denmark and know Danish and several other foreign languages, what are their chances of getting a job in a Danish workshop?
- Depends on where the person is from. Of course, if he is from the European Union, then he has a good chance of getting a job. If a person is not from the EU, then in order to accept him at the office, you will have to draw up a lot of documents, which does not contribute to the desire of the employer to hire him. But if you are a talented architect, graduate from an architecture university in Denmark, and we noticed you during your studies, then, of course, we will help you in preparing the necessary documents to work in our workshop.
Could you describe the ideal new employee for C. F. Møller?
- We are looking for a "raw", not spoiled talent. Architectural education today is so conceptual that a graduate often has no idea how to build a house. If a physician who just graduated from college did not know how the human body works, it would be a huge problem, but in architecture, it seems to me, it is much more important that you can think like an architect. All the technical details will come later: all of this can be learned in the process, when yesterday's graduate works side by side with more experienced colleagues. So we are looking for people who have the talent to create something interesting.
But how can you assess whether a person has the talent you are talking about? Based on portfolio only?
- Yes, mostly like that. Graduates in Denmark are still receiving grades. But we usually do not look at them, since they seem very subjective to us. As you remember, in our institutes people mostly work in groups, and it is important to find out what part of the work was done by the person who came to get a job with us. Of course, you can never be 100% sure of anything, so we have a trial period of 3 months, during which everything usually becomes clear. As a rule, we make the right choice, but, of course, there have been exceptions.
What is the salary level for an aspiring architect in Denmark? It would also be great if you could tell us a little about taxes in your country
- Each of us pays a fairly high income tax. In return, we get a lot for free, for example, medicine and education. The maximum income tax is 68%, but, of course, not every citizen pays it. For example, I pay just 68% of taxes, since I have a very high salary and have no children. But, since I understand that I am getting a certain standard of living in return, I am not against giving so much to the state. In Denmark, in a sense, we have socialism, which the countries of the Eastern Bloc tried but failed to create. Due to high taxes, the cost of living in Denmark is also quite high: today we are one of the most expensive countries in the world. Everything here is on average 25% more expensive than in Germany. Coming back to your question about the salary for architecture graduates in Denmark, it is 4,000 euros.
Gross or net?
- If you are an aspiring architect, you will pay 50-55% tax from 4000 euros. But it seems crazy that such a salary is received by a person who does not know how to build a building.
Let's talk a little about marketing in architecture. Danish architects are incredibly friendly, willing to cooperate with everyone and easily make contact with the press and colleagues from other countries. All of you take part in various exhibitions and give lectures with great pleasure. It works? Do you manage to attract customers in this way?
- Yes. Our openness to communication is one of the reasons for the international success of Danish architecture. It is probably strange to draw such parallels, but I am terrified when I come to a lecture, for example, in Austria, and see a professor who gives out lengthy philosophical discourses against the background of black and white slides with unreadable captions under the pictures and talks about ideas that have become irrelevant back in the 1990s: this is how he presents his projects to potential clients. I can go out and clearly explain why my building works. So the international success of Danish architects is largely due to our ability to correctly explain our ideas, and not by the fact that we are the best architects in the world or something else. We know that we become stronger when we cooperate with each other. We understand that Denmark is a small country where they speak a language that no one else speaks. The concept of presenting us in the international arena as part of one big movement helped us a lot. Now, for example, Germany is trying to do this, where they saw that this approach worked for us.
An architectural workshop usually has a message, message, which is often phrased as her motto. What is the motto of C. F. Møller?
- Oh, we are just hotly discussing this issue. We think it is simplicity, clarity and modesty. The founder of our company had a different definition: common sense and romanticism. Everything is clear with common sense: after all, what we design should be for people, interesting and convenient to use. But romanticism means that buildings should affect a person emotionally. This is a kind of dualism, since architecture is definitely not about how simply to create a building ideally technically, but about something much larger.
