Other editions of book The Master Builder

One of the Norwegian playwright’s most mysterious, symbolic, and lyrical dramas explores the life of architect Halvard Solness, once ruthlessly ambitious, but who, in his later years, not only feels threatened by the younger generation but also fears the decay of his own creativity. A tragic end for one of the most fascinating characters in modern drama.

Halvard Solness is the middle-aged Master Builder of a small town in Norway who has become a successful architect of some distinction and local reputation. One day while having a visit from his friend Doctor Herdal, Solness is visited by Hilde Wangel, a young woman of twenty-four from another town whom the doctor promptly recognizes from a recent trip. Soon after the Doctor leaves and Solness is alone with Hilde, she reminds him that they are not strangers and that they had previously met in her home town ten years ago when she was fourteen years of age.

First performed in 1892, this psychological drama is one of the great Norwegian playwright's most symbolic and lyrical works. The drama explores the insecurities of an aging architect, Halvard Solness, who suspects that his creative powers have diminished with age. Solness finds strength of purpose in his involvement with Hilda — his muse, inspiration, and ardent believer in his greatness — but their association leads to a conflict between heroic myth and complicated reality.

With The Master Builder—or Master Builder Solness, as the title runs in the original—we enter upon the final stage in Ibsen's career. "You are essentially right," the poet wrote to Count Prozor in March 1900, "when you say that the series which closes with the Epilogue (When We Dead Awaken) began with Master Builder Solness." "Ibsen," says Dr. Brahm, "wrote in Christiania all the four works which he thus seems to bracket together—Solness, Eyolf, Borkman, and When We Dead Awaken. He returned to Norway in July 1891, for a stay of indefinite length; but the restless wanderer over Europe was destined to leave his home no more.... He had not returned, however, to throw himself, as of old, into the battle of the passing day. Polemics are entirely absent from the poetry of his old age. He leaves the State and Society at peace. He who had departed as the creator of Falk [in Love's Comedy] now, on his return, gazes into the secret places of human nature and the wonder of his own soul."

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Written in 1892, later in Ibsen's life, "The Master Builder," or "Bygmester Solness," is a 3-act play that explores the conflicted thoughts and feelings of the hardened and powerful artist Halvard Solness. He is an older architect who painstakingly worked his way to professional distinction at the cost of his personal life. As he reflects on his career, Halvard is frustrated with his ambition and dreams of achieving genuine satisfaction in his life. At the same time, he fears being surpassed by a younger generation of talent, including by his own son, a younger member of the firm. A symbolic and semi-autobiographical play, "The Master Builder" portrays a creative man's confusion and downfall.