Biography
The architect and Urban planner Anne Marie Rubin, was the first in Denmark to open an office dedicated to urban planning. From the mid 1950s up until the 1960s, the increase in wealth taking place in Denmark meant that many Danish people could now afford holiday homes along the coast, something which brought about a rapid and uncontrolled expansion of the holiday home areas.
Rubin criticised this type of development and soon became a passionate defender of the Danish coasts. It was not that she opposed the idea of a second residence, it was that she saw how this unplanned expansion was causing the environment around it to deteriorate, along with the natural habitat of the coast lines.
The fact that these previously public spaces were being turned into private spaces also generated issues, as it limited access to natural resources. Anne Marie played a pivotal role in emphasising how long term planning could help protect Danish nature.
Her interest in urban planning came from thinking about the building of housing and planning itself as one combined entity. It was essential for cities to be built from one unifying idea and according to the needs of the people.
Throughout her career she would continuously address matters of the utmost importance during public discussions, believing it necessary to work on site conditions in order to protect nature and minimise the consumption of transport.
She became fiercely involved in different cases of note, fighting so tirelessly for them that she earned the nickname “The Red Ruby”.
Her father was a renowned experimental psychology professor and researcher, and her mother came from a fishing family in Middelfart. It was due to her father however that she gained an interest in working using a scientific approach, and in the interaction between humans and their environment.
The family moved from Copenhagen to the city of Holte during the second world war and in 1940 Rubin was admitted into the Holte School of Architecture. In 1943, she and her family were forced into exile in Lund for being Jews, however Rubin and her sister went further afield to Stockholm.
There, between 1943 and 1945, she studied in Tekniska Högskolan whilst working in an architectural studio that had an Urban Planning department. After the war she graduated from the Denmark School of Architecture. From 1949 to 1954 she formed part of the Urban Planning Committee within the Ministry of Housing and in 1951 was awarded the gold medal by the Denmark Academy of the Arts.
From 1954 to 1959 Rubin and her husband, Claus Bremer, had their own studio dedicated to Architecture and Urban Planning and won various competitions for the latter, although it must be said that they very seldom worked together. In 1958 the urban plan for the city of Nakskov became the reference point for many Danish provincial cities as the concept of road differentiation was developed.
In 1960, she and her husband would join forces on the Dansk Folkeferie Project in Rodhus Klit, a work which stood out for the way it integrated with such a sensitive natural area.
In 1967 she worked on her own project, Hvide Sande Klitby, dedicated to the holiday home areas. In the zoning plans for the northern area of the Danish island of Zelanda, Rubin worked with concentrated agricultural buildings and fan shaped paths that brought both fresh air and water views.
In the south of Lolland she drew up a very detailed plan that would allow for a 50 kilometre stretch of coast. Anne Marie fought against unplanned development and uncontrolled holiday home expansion because she feared that the open coast of Denmark would disappear and be replaced with private property.
30 years would go by before finally, in 1994, a 300 metre coastal protection line was put in place. Between 1982 and 1987, Rubin was a member of the Academy Board and in 1984 became its president. It was during this period that she became heavily involved in the debate over the Copenhagen Port development, writing a series of critical articles in the newspaper Politiken which did not shy away from debating the larger urban planning issues.
The way in which the port was developed was disappointing as it went against her progressive ideas. She therefore challenged the politicians with her opinions and radical ideas, while at the same time criticising the short term economic planning that was behind the large sale of the Port Authority land.
Anne Marie Rubin was brave, controversial, talented, and wrote well and concisely. In the world of Danish urban planning, she represented a certain poetic vision, and showed concern for not only the underdog but also for the main strands of the profession in regards to land planning and ecology etc.
Rubin also had an intense and flourishing academic career as a professor of Urban Planning at the University of Aalborg, where she was the first woman in Danish architecture to be named professor in 1974, a position she held up until 1989.
Anne Marie fought in Denmark for the professional rights of her gender.
