Plesner, Ulrik

Biography in relation to Skagen

Ulrik Plesner was born in Vedersø in West Jutland in 1861, where his father was a parish priest. In the late 1870s he was apprenticed as a bricklayer, and then he went to Copenhagen, where he attended the Technical School. In 1880 he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, from which he graduated in 1893.

Plesner was a prolific and style-creating Danish architect who made a decisive mark on the period of National Romanticism and Neo-Baroque in the period around the First World War. Much of Plesner's work was based in Skagen, where he also lived for long periods and was a valued member of the famous artists' colony.

The parish council in Skagen also used him as an aesthetic censor for all new buildings. He was highly respected by his fellow architects for the way he approached his tasks, and in this context he came to play an important role in the revolt against the building style of the period, historicism.

Plesner first came to Skagen in 1891, aged 30. He was a conductor at the lighthouse company and was responsible for the construction of the Højen Lighthouse. In the same year, he began the first of several additions and alterations to Brøndums Hotel.

Plesner's next assignment in Skagen was the renovation of the low eastern end of the nursery in 1984. The house was to be rented to Marie and P.S. Krøyer, whom Plesner had helped with the perspective in the painting "From Our Stock Exchange World" that same year.

Since then, many larger commissions have followed - the Harbourmaster's Residence, Klitgården, Admiralgården, the Hospital.

Twice Plesner designed an extension to an older long - in 1913 Michael and Anna Anchers House on Markvej was extended according to his drawings and in 1918 Bertelsvej 5 "the Cabin" for shipowner Henry Clifford Wallbridge.

Plesner's good friend Thorvald Bindesbøll gave him an interest in Art Nouveau and in several cases Bindesbøll supplied facade and interior decorations for Plesner's buildings

Plesner was part of the artists' colony in Skagen and his portrait hangs in Brøndum's dining room. In 1919 he produced the first drawings for Skagen Museum, and in addition to the buildings mentioned he left a significant mark on Skagen, having designed many large buildings in the town:

• the station buildings along the Skagens railway,

• the hospital,

• the bank (Sct. Laurentiivej 39),

• the harbour master's residence,

• Klitgården - the royal Summer Residence

• Admiralgården (Brøndums Annex)

• The Post Office

• and a large number of other houses, see under Buildings/Plesner buildings.

Plesner died of a heart attack in 1933, while staying at Brøndums Hotel, and he is buried at Skagen Assistents Cemetery.

Portraits of Plesner:

• Pastel by Anna Ancher (Skagen Museum).

• Painting by N.P. Mols (Brøndums Hotel).

• Portrayed in P.S. Krøyer: Skagen's Hunters 1898 (ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, composition sketches in Skagen Museum and private collection).

• Drawing by P.S. Krøyer 1889