Lars Backer

Who was Lars Backer?

Lars Thalian Backer was a Norwegian architect.

Backer was educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts under the supervision of Herman Major Schirmer and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, from which he graduated in 1915.

He served as an apprentice with several notable contemporary architects in Norway, including Harald Hals, Arnstein Arneberg, Ole Sverre, and Magnus Poulsson. After completing an internship at the Architectural Association School in London, he started his own practice in Kristiania.

Backer was responsible for several notable Scandinavian works, including the residence of the crown prince and princess at Skaugum, the Skansen and Ekeberg restaurants in Oslo, and the first high-rise office building in the city. His Skansen restaurant, completed in 1927, was the first modernist building in Norway, earning Backer lasting fame as a pioneer of Scandinavian Functionalism.

Backer died at the age of 38 from a streptococcal infection, but several members of his firm carried on his work and made names of their own, including Frithjof Stoud Platou, Helge B.Thams, Ingeborg Krafft, Jacob Hanssen, Hagbart Nielsen, and Georg Foss.