Some years ago on a boring night I was watching TV with my friend in his studio. We were not watching because something interesting was on the screen. What we were watching was some program about horses. Neither of us was interested at all in horses. But something caught our attention. There was an interview with a couple who had built their dream house. It was a combination of a villa and a stable in one house close to a lake in the outskirts of Reykjavik. They were proud of their new house and the combination with nature. The husband knocked on a fence inside the house and said: "It's all solid!" and his wife nodded and said: "But the best part is that this is all Icelandic." and the TV host said: "What do you mean?" Then the wife said: Well, it is all designed by Icelandic architects here in Reykjavik." Then the TV host says: "Hm, that is interesting" Then the husband says: "Actually they followed our own ideas." Then the wife says. "From a house we saw in Germany!"
This is the thing - Ideas are like driftwood they are not really original only the solutions. In the solutions we become personal. Basic ideas like internationalism or romanticism flow all over not just here but almost everywhere.
Driftwood ideas in Iceland
Classical garden within a vegetable garden southern Iceland
The Bullseye from an American soap to Icelandic throat lozenge
Gothic window from shipwreck Vik, Myrdal south Iceland
Mies van der Rohe facade in Hafnarfjordur