Marie Karsten

Narrator: 

At the beginning of the 20th century, the campaign for women's rights started to bear fruit in Norway and in 1913, women gained the right to vote. Meanwhile, history has largely ignored the relatively large number of Norwegian women who were making names for themselves at this time as artists, architects and designers. One of these women was the interior architect Marie Karsten. Ole Høgh Gaudernack, an art historian at the National Museum, tells us more. 

Ole Høeg Gaudernack: 

Marie Karsten was a leading figure in the Norwegian decorative arts in the early decades of the 20th century. In fact, she was the first person in Norway – either male or female – to call herself an interior architect. As early as 1909, she placed a small newspaper advertisement in Morgenbladet which read:  
Marie Karsten, interior architect. Number 35 St Olavs gate. Designs for furniture, arrangements of interiors. Office hours: 10 to 1.  

So here we have an enterprising and resourceful woman.  

Narrator: 

Marie Karsten wanted to reform and improve furniture design and home interiors by combining the traditional and the modern, the international and the national, as we can see from the stove she designed in 1918 for Bærums Verk, the old ironworks located 2 miles west of Oslo. 

Ole Høeg Gaudernack: 

At precisely this period at the start of the 20th century, Karsten was one of the leaders among designers who wanted to revive the old tradition of cast iron stoves and design them, in a way, in the spirit of a new age, but at the same time rooted in historical traditions. 

Karsten was a key figure in her time. But her importance has not been adequately recognized and it is important that we do not overlook her achievement as the first important interior architect in the history of Norwegian art and design.