Ingrid Fiksdahl King

1937 - 2024

Ingrid Fiksdahl King
January 27, 1937 - April 16, 2023
On Sunday, April 16, our mother, Ingrid Fiksdahl King, surrounded by her three children, passed away after a brief illness.
Ingrid Fiksdahl was born in 1937 in Trondheim, Norway. Her numerous stories almost always circled back to times with her much older three brothers, , her parents, her experience in World War II, and summers at the summer cabin. In 1954, Ingrid came to California as an American Field Service student and lived with the DeHes family in San Francisco on Avila Street and attended George Washington High School. This year was in good measure why she returned, a few years later, to attend architecture school at the University of California at Berkeley. Midway through her studies, Ingrid married her classmate, Van Maren King,and together they had their first child while finishing their professional degrees. Together they had three children, Caitlin (Nathan Brostrom), Johanna (Simo Hoite), and Benjamin (Kim Casey). While Ingrid and Van's marriage dissolved in 1972, they raised their children cooperatively in Northern California and Norway.
Ingrid was a noted Norwegian architect and professor of architectural design at The Norwegian University of Technology and Natural Science in Trondheim, Norway until her retirement in 2005. Ingrid was a long time collaborator with Christopher Alexander and, together with colleagues, they wrote "A Pattern Language" and other publications which developed pattern languages and other theooretical structures related to architecture and the environment. In 2016 "What Can I Be" was published, a collection of her children's illustrations in parallel with the writings of Ann Rand. And in 2022, a complete collection of her large scale abstract paintings was published by the family, a collection of which currently is on exhibit in Berkeley, California (Vintage Berkeley). Ingrid loved to perform harpsichord recitals for her family on Christmas morning. Most important to our mother was her family. She was immensely proud of all her children and of each of her 12 grandchildren (Caitlin:Mary (Peter), David, Ellen, Walter, Sarah, Anna) (Johanna:Viggo, Matias, Kai) (Benjamin:Max, Sam Benjamin). Ingrid is also survived by her brother's wife, Brit Fiksdahl, and her children who still reside in Norway. The family gives much thanks to Ladyfer Ewing for her essential and kind companionship these last few years. Memorial services are pending.