texaco gas station, skovshoved, denmark. architect: arne jacobsen, 1937.

this building shows jacobsen's debt to asplund in how thoroughly all aspects of the design are worked out. jacobsen spent some summers in the 1930's with asplund.

he later said that before meeting asplund, he thought he could work out the design lying on the couch, but asplund taught him that architecture was nothing but hard work.

asplund is the true father figure of nordic architecture, yet of all the great modernists only jacobsen had a real teacher-pupil relationship with him.

jacobsen's works of the late 30's are some of the finest of his career. when germany invaded denmark, he was forced to give up his office and go into exile in neutral sweden because he was jewish. he fled in a fishing boat, like so many other copenhagen jews, from one of the small villages north of the capital.

when jacobsen finally got his career back on track in the 1950's, it was quite a different modernism he practised with an international rather than nordic outlook.