Torborg Zimmer. Kvinnelig pioner og banebryter i norsk landskapsarkitektur

Abstract

In the early 1930s the very first women started their careers as professional landscape architects in Norway. Although the lives and works of these women are important pieces of the puzzle of our garden history, their story has not been a theme of interest in Norwegian research until lately. The aim of this article is to help fill in the gap by telling the story of one of these women landscape architect Torborg Zimmer. The article is based on new archive studies concentrating on her early period from childhood and education to breakthrough and early career until marrying Kåre Frölich in 1949.

Zimmer was born in 1911. She grew up in Bergen and established her own practice there in 1936 after studying abroad and at the Norwegian agricultural college (NLH). She had a challenging start being a young woman in a field strongly dominated by men, but eventually she found her place and gained respect for her work. She designed mainly private villa gardens in and around the two cities of Bergen and Stavanger. During her early period Zimmer was quite inspired by modernist ideas, using geometric figures and straight lines in clear-cut designs. Later she was more known for her great botanical skills such as rich and very detailed planting plans. Her archive shows about 240 projects from the 1930s to 1990s. 110 of them from before she married in 1949.

The article highlights three aspects of Zimmers contribution showing her importance to Norwegian garden history: 1. She was a pioneer being one of the very first women entering the discipline as professional landscape architects. 2. She contributed to the development of the discipline by bringing in new ideas and modern design from abroad, and by actively participating in the professional discourse. 3. She contributed greatly to Norwegian garden art by designing a large number of beautiful gardens in Western Norway.