[2] Backer was educated at Wilhelm von Hanno's drawing school, at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry in Christiania, and in Dresden.

When he returned to Norway from abroad, he first worked for three years as a stipendiary building inspector in Christiania before he established his own practice in the town in 1882.

[3] One of the first large commissions that Backer accepted was to design a mansion for the lumber merchant and government minister Hans Rasmus Astrup.

It was commissioned by Fritz Wedel Jarlsberg and was built in 1891 in a style similar to that of the Fridheim Mansion.

[8] Backer's Backergården building is a Baroque Revival structure at Kongens gate no.

It was built for the businessman Johan Paul Jørgen Alexander Backer and his fur business in 1895.