Gudolf Blakstad was a Norwegian architect who rose to prominence in the 1920s as one of the country's leading figures in neoclassicism in Norwegian architecture but transitioned to functionalism from 1930 onwards.
He completed his education as an architect at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1916 and worked for two years under architect Arnstein Arneberg before starting his own practice in Oslo in 1918. In 1919, he designed the Oslo New Theater (together with Jens Dunker).
Blakstad also participated in an architectural competition announced by the sports association at the university in 1911 for the design of the outing site Studenterhytta. This is presumed to be Blakstad's first project, completed in 1913 - built in a mirrored version. Original building drawings are found in the archives of NTNUI.
In 1922, together with Herman Munthe-Kaas, he established the architectural firm Blakstad and Munthe-Kaas. That same year, they won the architectural competition for the town hall in Haugesund, but their neoclassical project was not completed until 1931.
In 1927, he was one of the artists and architects invited by Arno Berg, then the city antiquarian in Oslo, to develop proposals on how the capital's building stock could become more colorful and inviting. The initiative for this urban development project came from the artist Henrik Sørensen.
In Oslo, Blakstad and Munthe-Kaas designed, among other buildings, Kunstnernes Hus, built-in 1930 after a design competition in 1928, and the Odd Fellow Building, completed in 1934 after a competition in 1931. In 1940, the Commercial High School was completed but was requisitioned by the Germans and not used as a school until 1946. Among Blakstad and Munthe-Kaas' well-known later works is the Alfaset Chapel from 1972. Bodø Cathedral is one of their prominent works from the post-war period.
For their collaboration, Gudolf Blakstad and Herman Munthe-Kaas were awarded the Houens Foundation Diploma and the Concrete Award in 2004 for the Elgeseter Bridge.
Sources