House in landscape

Description

Between the playground and the administration building at the primary school Kongehøjskolen in Aabenraa stands an iron plateau that is half a metre high. This sculpture was a gift to the school formerly known as Brundlundskolen, which has now merged with another school (Rugkobbelskolen) under the joint name Kongehøjskolen.

The iron plateau supports a mountain landscape of black granite upon which balances, near its edge, a diminutive unfinished house made of red granite.
This house has double doors the size of a thimble. The building’s small scale invites the viewer on a trek into the sculpture. Seen through the eyes of a Lilliputian wanderer, the landscape around the house is overwhelming. The mountain looms large, and with its pattern of slippery, sharp-edged triangles the mountainside seems impossible to climb.

According to the artist the miniature house is a symbol of the school, where people grow and take shape: “The house is lowest and seems unfinished at the one end, while its other end is taller and more fully shaped. This is meant as a symbol of the pupils at the school. They begin at the lower end and come out at the other end, after developing and taking shape,” Hans Lembrecht Madsen explained at the sculpture’s unveiling.