Munkegaard School is a school in Klampenborg

Klampenborg

Klampenborg is a northern suburb to Copenhagen, Denmark. It is located in Gentofte Municipality, directly on Øresund, between Taarbæk and Skovshoved. Like other neighbourhoods along the Øresund coast, Klampenborg is an affluent area with many large houses....

, just north of Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, designed by the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen

Arne Emil Jacobsen, usually known as Arne Jacobsen, was a Danish architect and designer. He is remembered for contributing so much to architectural Functionalism as well as for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple but effective chair designs.-Early life and education:Arne Jacobsen was born...

 and completed in 1957. The complex is considered to be one of Jacobsen's most important architectural works.

Background

At the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s, a considerable number of schools were built in Denmark. Special attention was given at the time to the need for the child's physical wellbeing, inspired in part by the English one-storey school buildings of the period. In 1949, Munkegaard School, was conceived as one of the first one-storey schools in Denmark. The overall idea was to build a complex for a large number of children which had all the advantages of a much smaller school. It was thought this could be achieved by dividing the complex into sets of two adjacent classrooms, each with its own courtyard or garden, in order to provide a feeling of intimacy and wellbeing.

Architecture

The yellow-brick complex consists of a rectangular grid of one-storey buildings linked together by transversal glass-walled corridors. Each of the 24 classrooms has direct access to one of the courtyards between the buildings. Science classrooms and specialist facilities, including a library, are located in a two-storey building on one side of the complex while a second two-storey building housing an assembly hall, offices and other facilities stands at the centre of the site. Steps lead down a slope to the playing field below the school. In addition to light from the full-height windows on the walls overlooking the courtyards, daylight comes in through south-facing cleretories

Clerestory

Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...

 in the split-pitched roofs, illuminating the back of the classrooms.

Virtually everything in the school has been designed by Jacobsen: the interiors, fittings, desks and chairs, lighting, curtains, as well as the specially laid out gardens. Some of the items, such as the classroom lights (Munkegårdslampen) and his plexiglass panel of loud speakers, were later manufactured on an industrial basis. The small, individually planted courtyards contain antique sculptures, some freestanding, some as reliefs on the walls. Even though the school was designed for about a thousand pupils, it has an uncomplicated look and was complimented on its sensible layout and intimacy. Its simple, humane appearance is a result of the complex's carefully calculated proportions. As with Jacobsen's other works, a characteristically rigid system emerges as a living development. The result is a building which contributed to elegant school design in the 1950s. As a result of widespread interest in Munkegård, Jacobsen was chosen to design St Catherine's College, Oxford

St Catherine's College, Oxford

St Catherine's College, often called Catz, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its motto is Nova et Vetera...

.

Recent development

In 1996, Munkegaard School was given the status of a listed building. In 2001, the school presented plans for alterations and extensions but these were not accepted as a result of its status. After negotiations between Gentofte Municipality and the Ministry of Culture,
permission was granted for additional facilities to be built beneath the existing buildings. Under the supervision of Dorte Mandrup

Dorte Mandrup

Dorte Mandrup-Poulsen is a Danish architect, founder and owner of the architectural practice Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark.-Biography:...

, work began in January 2006 and was completed at the end of 2009.