Decoration

The site-specific decoration of Herlev Hospital started out as a decoration project in the hospital’s foyer. This consisted of a total of 56 individual paintings, executed by Poul Gernes in collaboration with his wife, Aase Sedler Gernes, and a few assistants. The paintings were created with enamel-paint on pre-treated fireproof boards, which function simultaneously as pieces of the finished wall. Fifty-one of these paintings measure 2.5 x 2.5 meters, while the remaining five are slightly narrower, measuring 2.5 x 1.85 meters. All the paintings, including the painted folding doors, add up to a total of 500 square meters for the decoration.

The motives for these paintings are patterns and symbols, which are easy to recognize, even at a distance. For example, a chessboard, the face of a compass, a numeral, an alphabetical letter, dots, flags, circles, targets and so forth – even a verse of poetry has managed to creep into the collection. It goes like this: “Roses are red, violets are blue, strawberries are sweet and so are you.” This little verse can almost be read as a motto for the whole project, since colours have always had a meaning. They remind you of something, or they refer to something.

A painting of flags from the whole world was, in compliance with Gernes’ instructions, executed by a West German sign painter. However, he “forgot” to include the East German flag. Gernes regarded it as a mistake – and he painted over all the flags with red paint, except for one – the Stars and Stripes! After this, he made the sign painter do a new painting with nothing but flags of the day’s nations. The older flag painting was also used in the sequence, and the texture of flags can be felt – and seen – underneath the red paint.

In addition to the foyer’s pictorial frieze, four folding doors (2.5 x 7.8 meters) in front of the shops have also been painted. Patterns have been executed using a stencil technique on both sides. After the shops are closed, when the folding doors are extended in their full length, they fashion four separate decorations. 

Poul Gernes himself considered the foyer as one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen. This statement expresses something crucial about his ideal of beauty: he was not a purist, and it was important for him that a place lived and was used. The foyer was grand, yet mild and friendly, he thought.

“There are several beauty spots, I have made some of them myself. But nonetheless, there is a radiance and an atmosphere that is exciting, elevating and appeasing. There are flowers, plants, chocolates, newspapers, information, paintings, even a glass mosaic, marble, plaster, glass and plastic, concrete, aluminium. There is a lot of light, and also shade. The explanation for how all these many things are held in some kind of balance, which is good, is that an all too tailor-made formalism has been avoided. The result is accordingly unpretentious, which in itself is something of a rarity. The balance here, I suppose, is the tension between pretentiousness and, quite precisely, unceremoniousness.”