«Il mostro di cemento a fauci spalancate». Halldór Laxness e l’impatto della steinsteypa nelle campagne islandesi
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In the first decades of the twentieth century, prosperity in Iceland prompted the use of concrete to replace peat as the most common building material for farmhouses. Thanks to a technical office sponsored by the Rural Bank, the construction of concrete country houses was gradually standardised. The article analyses these new policies as described in Halldór Laxness’s novel Sjálfstætt fólk (1934-35; Independent People), in which Bjartur, a farmer living in the Icelandic highlands, decides to build himself a concrete house: his ambitious project clashes with the country’s merciless environmental conditions and the incompetence of some local workers. Between nostalgia for the past and hopes for a better future, concrete farmhouses herald modernity but, according to Laxness, look like the ruins of a shelled building.
Authors: Silvia Cosimini, Sofia Nannini
Institutions: University of Milan, Politecnico di Torino
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4410779964