Haldor Larsen Børve (19 August 1857 – 11 August 1933) was an architect from Ullensvang in Hordaland, Norway. Børve started an architectural practice in Porsgrunn in 1889 and designed numerous buildings in Telemark and Vestfold, many of them influenced by Dragestil and the Nordic National Romantic style. Among his best-known works are Dalen Hotel from 1894 and Porsgrunn City Hall from 1904/1905.
Background
Børve was born in Ullensvang in 1857 to farmer Lars Jørgensen Børve (1815–91) and Anna Haldorsdatter Eidnes (1822–1911). He attended Trondheim Technical Vocational School () from 1877 to 1880, after which he worked for a few years as a junior architect. His only major project during this time was managing the restoration of Ullensvang Church in Ullensvang from 1883 to 1886, a project led by Bergen architect Christian Christie. In 1887, he pursued further education at the Polytechnic Institute of Hannover in Germany. He was among the last of the great Norwegian architects to attend the architectural school in Hannover, which had greatly influenced Norwegian architecture in the latter half of the 19th century. He finished his studies in 1889, and with the help of a government grant for engineers, he moved to Porsgrunn in Telemark, Norway and started his own architectural firm that same year. In 1890, he married Kristine Jørstad (1861–1941).
Career
Haldor Larsen Børve's first work under the new firm was the Borgestad school (Borgestad skole) built in Skien in 1889. The building was bestowed upon the local school district by local shipping magnate and future prime minister Gunnar Knudsen. Though the building has long since been demolished, it was once a grand three-story stone building in the Neo-Gothic style, a symmetrical design with steep gables on both ends which featured Gothic window designs and pointed arches.
While Børve had learned a great deal about contemporary German architecture during his studies in Hannover, as shown in his use of Neo-Gothic and Swiss chalet styles. He was also a great proponent of Norwegian romantic nationalism and often integrated elements from Dragestil and National Romantic style into his work, as exemplified by Dalen Hotel, Børve's best-known work. In addition to his architectural practice, Børve was also the head teacher and later administrator at Porsgrunn Technical Evening School (). He was active as an architect until the early 1920s, and died in 1933 at Porsgrunn, aged 75.
Following Børve's death, his daughter, architect Alfhild Børve, took over her father's practice along with Haldor Larsen Børve's assistant Ødegaard. The next year, Johannes Laurentius Borchsenius (1903-2003) took over as co-owner with Alfhild Børve, and the firm changed its name to Børve Borchsenius Arkitekter. Borchsenius was an architect from Skien who studied at the Norwegian Institute of Technology. He was responsible for the construction of camps for Norwegian refugees in Sweden during World War II and, following the war, the reconstruction of areas in Finnmark such as Vadsø and Kirkenes. The newly named firm designed several buildings in the Porsgrunn area using functionalist principles, including the Folkets hus just across from Børve's Vår Frue Church. The company still exists today under the same name, making it one of the longest-running architectural firms in Norway.
Major works
Croftholmen
With the exception of Gunnar Knudsen's Borgestad School in 1889, the mansion on Croftholmen (now Croftholmen High School) in Stathelle was Børve's first major work under his new firm. The work was commissioned by Frederic Croft in 1890. Croft was a very wealthy Englishman whose father, William Croft, was a mine owner in Yorkshire who also had a high position in "The Norway Mining Timber Company" in Hull. Frederic Croft had trained in England as an engineer, but in 1870 he took one of his father's boats and sailed away to Norway, reportedly to forget a painful love story from back home. Croft also had a reputation of being a very eccentric figure. He was among the first people to own an automobile in the county, and one story involved him being ticketed for scaring the horses while driving through Porsgrunn. The policeman issued him a fine of twenty kroner, and Croft handed him forty kroner instead. When told again that the fine was only twenty kroner, Croft replied, "But I will also return home."