Room 606: The Sas House and the Work of Arne Jacobsen [Hardcover]

Michael Sheridan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2003

This text reconstructs a building that no longer exists, in order to rediscover a lost world of beauty and sensation and gain a new insight into the work of Danish architect Arne Jacobsen. That building is the SAS House, a luxury hotel and airline terminal completed in Copenhagen in 1960. Designed for the Scandinavian Airlines System at the dawn of the jet age, the SAS House was Jacobsen's masterpiece, a cumulative work that condensed the architectural strategies and formal devices of a lifetime into a single example of total design. The SAS House has been reduced to a shadow of its original condition. While the building is still used as a hotel and ticketing office, the distinctive interiors and fixtures that were an integral part of Jacobsen's masterwork have been discarded or altered beyond recognition. However, on the sixth floor of the hotel tower, a single guest room remains in its original condition, with the built-in woodwork, furniture, custom fabrics and surfaces that Jacobsen created for the 275 rooms of the SAS Royal Hotel. Room 606 is a microcosm of the larger building, and, examined in detail, provides the key to understanding the SAS House and, by extension, the underlying themes of Jacobsen's entire career. This book presents a very distinct way of looking at an architect's work, using the time capsule room 606 as a lens through which to examine Jacobsen's entire career. This is reflected in the structure of the book. The chapters are organized thematically, and each is articulated into three sections, which examine each theme as it applies to room 606, the SAS House, and Jacobsen's entire work. This structure is emphasized by the design as well as the visual material, which are also articulated in the same tripartite way. This structure and insight into the Danish architect's work is brought alive by a wealth of visual material, including a stunning collection of black-and-white images taken shortly after the completion of the SAS House by renowned architectural photographer Aage Struwing, who collaborated with Jacobsen for more than two decades; a portfolio of specially commissioned colour photographs by Paul Warchol that underline the contemporaneity of room 606; as well as original sketches and architectural drawings, many of which have never been published.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Sheridan is a practicing architect in New York City. He lived in Copenhagen during his youth and later studied architecture at the University of Minnesota and Columbia University in New York City. Twenty-one years after he left Copenhagen, he returned on a traveling fellowship, where he spent a week in room 606 in the SAS House. Engrossed by the timeless masterpiece, he has become a leading authority on Arne Jacobsen. His research has been supported by the Architectural League of New York and by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Author's Residence: New York, NY.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Phaidon Press; 1St Edition edition (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714842893
• ISBN-13: 978-0714842899
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,531,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Room 606: The SAS House and the Work of Arne Jacobsen, December 16, 2003

By 

Michael Webb (London, England > Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Room 606: The Sas House and the Work of Arne Jacobsen (Hardcover)

The Dalai Lama was staying at the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel when I was in Copenhagen, a month ago, but happily Room 606 was unoccupied and I was able to see this one surviving fragment of Arne Jacobsen's gesamtkunstwerk. Denmark's leading architect designed this hotel-terminal in 1960 as the flagship of SAS, a major patron of progressive design, when air travel was still a civilized experience for a fortunate few. Fabrics, lighting, and furniture-most famously the Egg, Swan, and Drop chairs-even the stainless steel flatware and door handles were custom designed by Jacobsen for the hotel. Everything but the one room (which rents for about $575 a night) and the spiral stair in the lobby has now been changed. Sheridan, a New York architect, employs a wealth of period photos and sketches to recreate every facet of the original and places it in the context of Jacobsen's earlier work. The result is a gem of lucid scholarship. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arne Jacobsen's Mona Lisa, August 21, 2008

By 

David M. (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Room 606: The Sas House and the Work of Arne Jacobsen (Hardcover)

This is an amazing book on a great designer/architect. There are other OOP books on Jacobsen but this one describes every detail of this great project. It also describes other related buildings and objects so that you can get a good overview of his work. A must have for any design fan.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent survey of Jacobsen's Gesamtkusntwerk, February 26, 2010

By 

Mark Mussari (Old Pueblo) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Room 606: The Sas House and the Work of Arne Jacobsen (Hardcover)

This is an excellently written and beautifully illustrated book that sits at a clear intersection between architecture and aesthetic appreciation. It is a very straightforward book: the language is neither florid nor overly technical. In its own way, it is a literary time capsule capturing what has mostly been lost, Jacobsen's inventive creation of every facet of the SAS Royal Hotel. In some ways it is a difficult book to read, because it leaves one amazed that the Danes did not preserve Jacobsen's amazing work and designs. And it leaves one longing for this era of Modernism at its very best.