About Ralph Erskine

Ralph Erskine was a functionalist of the last days. Yes, those were his own words: "I consider myself a latter day functionalist". He said it a little to tease – he liked to do that. In a postmodern era, functionalism stood for rigid systems, large-scale solutions, and an architecture out of touch with people's full range of needs. So how could Erskine persist as a functionalist? His entire work consisted of houses and environments that were close, committed and almost spontaneous.

No, his functionalism must be understood from what he knew about how people function, not how buildings function. He created a culture that resisted when boredom and loneliness threatened. Because that's when life feels the most diabolical, we need culture the most. Erskine refused to heroize the melancholy.

The attitude has gained many admirers and mentees. His commitment to reaching out to the less well-off and to building according to nature's conditions has made him increasingly relevant. Generosity was a way of life. This required projects that brought in money, but the office often worked on things that did not pay off.

There was a shimmer over Erskine's days. An era of time for visions beyond income, and with income based on visions. But just because times are different, his ethics are not outdated. It is needed so much more. The rich, diverse and entertaining environments he created were the result of a well-founded principle of people's equal value.

Not only did it give him an ethical compass, but also the confidence to trust his intuition. He understood that people need houses for more than just protection from the elements; They must keep us company. The fact that the decisions were based on a sense of what works, rather than calculations, made his house very comprehensible. It could also apply to details, such as an articulated link between a column and a beam. Completely unnecessarily mobile, but very expressive. Functionalistic? Not particularly.

His vision of the good life was quite simple. Sometimes too simple, not at least for the complex conditions high up in the north. Because walls that are supposed to provide shelter from the north, create both shadows and snowdrifts. Such things did put a spanner in the works for Erskine's visions, and therefore not many of his grand ideas for the cities of the north became reality.

But it's simple things that make life wonderful. It's wonderful in the morning sun, the sight of a balloon makes people imagine, and the water that sizzles around the bow when the wind fills the sails sings a song of freedom – all of which Erskine knew, and he knew how to translate it into architecture.