3. Juni 2012 - New Ceramics

to Broager, where they personally selected the shades of
Kolumba they wanted for the building. The same architects
also designed the Sorø Art Museum, which opened
in November 2011. This project was inspired by Min2
Arkitekter in Holland, who a few years earlier had developed
a variant of Kolumba to mount as shingles on
both the roof and the façade of their private residence
in Bergen aan Zee. Lundgaard & Tranberg refined this
system for the Sorø Art Museum. The result inspired the
following headline above a review of the project in the
Danish newspaper Politiken: “Brick just doesn't get any
more beautiful than this”.
In December 2011, the first containers of Kolumba
arrived at Haverford College, Pennsylvania, on the Eastern
Seaboard of the USA. In a few months’ time, the
characteristic brick will form the façades of new student
housing on the campus. The new buildings have been
designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects,
whose office lies at the southern boundary of Central
Park in New York City. The story of their connection
with Petersen Tegl began a few years ago when the
brickworks’ owner, Christian A. Petersen, and export
manager, Stig Sørensen, knocked on the architects’ door
to present their wares. Tod Williams and his team were
immediately interested. And, in addition to Haverford
College, the studio has other projects in the pipeline that
utilise Kolumba. Head over to 21st Street and there you
will find the Gladstone Gallery, which was built in Kolumba
a couple of years ago.
Its success in the USA is far from unusual for Petersen
Tegl, which has regularly increased its exports, including
to Japan and Russia, over the past decade. However,
Europe is still the company’s main export market.
Artistic partnership in Tokyo
Its close collaboration with architects around the
world also means that Petersen Tegl is often involved
when bricks are required that match the colour, structure
and format of existing architecture. Petersen’s department
for special bricks was founded when the old main
entrance to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen was restored
22 years ago. The entrance was originally built in 1890,
and its intricate brick reliefs needed to be replaced. Petersen
took on the job, and since then the brickworks
has regularly been commissioned to take on special assignments.
Among its more unusual assignments is Takeo Obayashi’s
Yu’un guest house in Tokyo, designed by architect
Tadao Ando and built in 2007. Ando collaborated on the
façade with the artist Olafur Eliasson, who worked with
Petersen Tegl to develop the12-sided rhomboid clinkers,
coated with platinum and produced at the brickworks.
The unusual clinkers beautifully capture and reflect the
light, and cover the entire building’s façade.
Ida Prastegaard is an architect, journalist and editor of
Petersen Tegl's architectural magazine.
Petersen Tegl A/S - nybølnorvej 14 - DK-6310 Broager
Tel. +45 7444 1236 - Fax +45 7444 0434
info@petersen-tegl.dk
ww.petersen-tegl.dk
top left a. right Moulded bricks are made in wooden moulds, then dried
and fired. The moulded bricks department was founded
when the brickworks supplied new, ornamental terracotta
brick for the renovation of the entrance to Tivoli gardens in
Copenhagen.
middle At the brickworks, the Kolumba bricks are inspected
thoroughly before being packed and shipped – sometimes
to as far away as Kazakhstan or new York.
below Petersen Tegl is the only brickworks in Denmark to fire its
bricks with coal, which produces the famous and
multifarious plays on colour. The bricks are fired at 1060
degrees. The oven is 80 metres long.
MAY / JUnE 2012 NEW CERAMICS 53