North Jutland Art Museum in Aalborg
The building was designed in 1968-72 by Elissa and Alvar Aalto with the Danish architect Jean-Jaques Barüel. Poul Gernes decorated the cafeteria with painted brick walls in 1993 and made use of the bricks as elements in a cross-stitch-like pattern. Museum director at the time, Nina Hobolth recounts:
"Poul and Aase visited the museum in the spring and proposed a larger project for decoration of the exhibition halls to improve the dingy white colours, as they said. The conservation, which came through in 1995-6 did not tally with Poul and Aase's visions. But we agreed that the café would be a much better place to hang around if it had a decoration. As Poul and Aase had intended – and on the background of their skill and assured experience – the decoration really did lift the room's atmosphere of warmth and humanity. Using the brick tile pattern as something like old-fashioned needlepoint was both humourous and artistically original."
Finn Thybo Andersen: Poul Gernes Decoration Projects. London 2018, p. 60. Translated by Dan A. Marmorstein. Excerpt.
