Sigurd Lewerentz Architect Stockholm, Modern Buildings Sweden, Swedish Design Projects, Woodland Cemetery
Sigurd Lewerentz Architect : Architecture
20th Century Swedish Architecture Practice: Modernist Buildings in Sweden, Europe
30 September 2021
Sigurd Lewerentz Exhibition in Stockholm
Sigurd Lewerentz, Sweden’s Most Revered Architect, Celebrated With Major Exhibition In Stockholm
Chapel of Resurrection, The Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm, Sweden:
photograph : Åke E:son Lindman
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life
ArkDes, Stockholm
1 October 2021 – 28 August 2022
Sweden’s most revered architect Sigurd Lewerentz, regarded as a giant of 20th century architecture, is the subject of a major exhibition, Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life with exhibition design by Caruso St John, at ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design in Stockholm, from 1st October 2021 – 28th August 2022.
The exhibition is a significant moment of assessment, the first major survey of the work of Sigurd Lewerentz since the 1980s. It is accompanied by the most comprehensive monograph to date of his work, edited by Kieran Long, Johan Örn and Mikael Andersson, published by Park Books in collaboration with ArkDes.
St Petri Church, Klippan, Sweden:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
Lewerentz, born in Bjärtrå, Ångermanland in Sweden in 1885, is an enigmatic figure in the modern history of architecture. He rarely spoke publicly or published, but his influence is acknowledged by a generation of the world’s leading architects.
Kieran Long, Director of ArkDes and curator of the exhibition, said: “There is no Swedish architect with more influence on contemporary architecture today, or with more passionate advocates across the globe, than Sigurd Lewerentz. Devotees travel from everywhere in the world to see his buildings. There are very few architects in history with Lewerentz’s ability to make buildings that truly ask the biggest questions about what it means to be a modern person. His work powerfully evokes our deepest and most archaic cultural memories. But he was also fascinated by cosmetic and fleeting pleasures: Shopping, dancing, drinking and having dinner. The life of the city fascinated him and his work made a stage for our playful selves as well as our spiritual ones.”
Exhibition tour:
Digital Tour | Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life from ArkDes on Vimeo.
Colin St. John Wilson, paraphrasing E.M. Forster’s impression of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, said it was “as if he stood at a slight angle to the world.”
Floating dance floor. Stockholm exhibition 1930:
image : ArkDes collections
In the words of Adam Caruso, designer of the exhibition: “Lewerentz’s late projects represent an unprecedented integration of making and thought. Like Matisse, who advised young painters to cut off their tongues and communicate with brush, paint and canvas, Lewerentz was famously laconic. He did not teach and few of his own project descriptions survive. He built.”
The exhibition and the book are the result of four years of research. The majority of the objects in the exhibition are drawn from ArkDes’ own formidable collection, which will be shown alongside hitherto unknown or never previously exhibited objects that have been discovered in travels by the research team across the country.
Sigurd Lewerentz outside St Mark’s Church, Björkhagen
photograph : Pål-Nils Nilsson. Private collection
The exhibition covers the full range of Lewerentz’s works, including some of his most iconic projects: The Woodland Cemetery in south Stockholm, designed with Gunnar Asplund (1915-61), now a UNESCO World Heritage Site where many notable Swedish writers, musicians and actors are buried, including Greta Garbo, and his two late masterpieces, St Mark’s Church, in Bjorkhagen, completed in 1960; and St Peter’s Church in Klippan, completed in 1966. The show also includes a range of drawings of these famous buildings but also objects that show how Lewerentz’s collaborations with artists and theologians made buildings that were deeply literate and inventive about Christian traditions.
Chapel of Resurrection, The Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
A landmark new book has been published in connection with the exhibition, the largest and most comprehensive ever written about Lewerentz. Designed by award-winning graphic designer Malmsten Hellberg and images by the architect and architectural photographer Johan Dehlin, it will contain over 700 pages of drawings, photographs and models, plus excerpts from Lewerentz’ personal archive and library.
Film about Sigurd Lewerentz:
Kieran Long: About Sigurd Lewerentz from ArkDes on Vimeo.
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life
Published by Park Books in collaboration with ArkDes
May 2021
Edited by Kieran Long and Johan Örn. Co-edited by Mikael Andersson
ISBN 978-3-03860-232-3
www.park-books.com
Previously on e-architect:
27 May 2021
Sigurd Lewerentz Architect Monograph
Major Building by this 20th Century Swedish Architect
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect Of Death And Life
Major new monograph of Sweden’s most revered architect
Accompanying exhibition at ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design, opens 1st October 2021
Published by Park Books, May 2021
Edited by Kieran Long and Johan Örn
Co-edited by Mikael Andersson
Thursday 27th of May 2021 – Sweden’s most revered architect Sigurd Lewerentz, regarded as one of the most important and enigmatic figures of modern European architecture, is the subject of a major new monograph, published in May 2021 by Park Books in collaboration with ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design in Stockholm.
This vast new book offers the most comprehensive survey to date of Lewerentz’s achievements, newly researched from original objects and archival material uncovered across Sweden, featuring over 700 pages of photographs, drawings, and sketches with essays by leading experts exploring Lewerentz’s life, work and legacy.
Malmström’s grave / Malmströms grav:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
Edited by Kieran Long, Director of ArkDes, and Johan Örn, curator of collections at ArkDes, and co-edited by Mikael Andersson, architectural historian and critic, this landmark book will be a significant moment of reassessment. An accompanying exhibition opening at ArkDes on 1st October 2021, curated by Kieran Long and designed by Caruso St John, will be the first major monographic exhibition of Lewerentz’s work in over 30 years.
Meditation grove Almhöjden, The Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
Lewerentz, who was born in Bjärtrå, Ångermanland, in northern Sweden in 1885 and died in Lund 1975, is a mythologised figure in the history of 20th century architecture. Arguably Sweden’s most distinguished modernist, his influence is admired today by a generation of the world’s leading architects.
Architecture devotees from around the world travel to visit his projects, from his late masterpieces St Mark’s Church in Bjorkhagen and St Peter’s Church in Klippan, to Stockholm’s iconic woodland cemetery Skogskyrkogården, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Designed by award-winning graphic designer Malmsten Hellberg, this new book features new photography of all of Lewerentz’s major works by the architect and architectural photographer Johan Dehlin, as well as never-before-seen drawings and plans for buildings, furniture and interiors from Lewerentz’s collection at ArkDes.
Springs Way, The Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
Kieran Long, Director of ArkDes and Editor of Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life, said: “This monograph is a long-awaited addition to contemporary architecture publishing. There is no Swedish architect with more influence on contemporary architecture today, or with more passionate advocates across the globe, than Sigurd Lewerentz. His work was ubiquitous in the education of all the best architects I had grown up with in my twenty years of writing about, curating and teaching architecture.”
Cemetery chapel, Kvarnsveden, Sweden:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
Title Information
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life
Published by Park Books in collaboration with ArkDes
Eds. Kieran Long and Johan Örn. Co-ed. Mikael Andersson
1st edition, 2021
Hardback
720 pages
23 x 30 cm
ISBN 978-3-03860-232-3
Design: Malmsten Hellberg.
St Mark’s Church, Björkhagen, Sweden – Markuskyrkan:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
New photos of Lewerentz built work: Johan Dehlin.
Contributors
Kieran Long has been director of Stockholm’s ArkDes since 2017. Prior to that he established the new Department of Design, Architecture and Digital at the V&A, London.
Johan Örn is an architectural historian and curator of collections at ArkDes.
Mikael Andersson is an architectural historian and critic.
St Mark’s Church, Björkhagen:
photo : Johan Dehlin
Sigurd Lewerentz
Sigurd Lewerentz was born in the north of Sweden, in Bjärtrå, Västernorrland County, on 29 July 1885, the son of Gustaf Adolf and Hedvig Matilda Lewerentz. He initially trained as a mechanical engineer and an architect at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and followed his education with apprenticeships in Berlin and Munich.
Markuskyrkan, Björkhagen, Sweden:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
When Lewerentz set up an independent practice in Stockholm in 1911, he was joined by his colleague Torsten Stubelius. His first breakthrough came in 1915 when he was awarded first prize in the competition for a new cemetery in Stockholm (The Woodland Cemetery), a proposal created in collaboration with Gunnar Asplund. For the Woodland Cemetery, Lewerentz designed the neoclassical Resurrection Chapel, completed in 1925. A year following his success in the competition of 1915, he won first prize in the competition for a new cemetery in Malmö.
Markuskyrkan, Björkhagen:
photo: Johan Dehlin
During the 1930s, while Lewerentz was working on the two cemeteries, he made major contributions to the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 by way of buildings, furniture, and graphic design. Around this time he also realised two major office buildings in Stockholm. He started to design and produce steel windows and other architectural fittings, a side of his practice that gradually absorbed more and more of his time. In the 1940s, he set up his own factory for these purposes in Eskilstuna.
National insurance institute, Stockholm, Sweden:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
In the mid 1940s Lewerentz oversaw the completion of the Chapels of St. Knut and St. Gertrud, and the Malmö City Theatre – two projects that he had worked on for many years. His notoriety came with the late churches, however: St. Marks in Björkhagen (1960), and St. Peters in Klippan (1966). When Lewerentz died in Lund in 1975, he was regarded as a legend of Swedish architecture.
Skogskyrkogården, Sweden:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
ArkDes
ArkDes, located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, is Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design. It is a museum, a study centre and an arena for debate and discussion about the future of architecture, design and citizenship. It is housed in a beautiful building by Rafael Moneo and more recently ArkDes´ new studio gallery, called Boxen, designed by Dehlin Brattgård Architects.
Crematorium, Eastern Cemetery, Malmö, Sweden:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
Park Books
Park Books is a European publishing house for architecture and related fields, and an international platform for architectural book projects. Park Books has been established in 2012 as an affiliate of the renowned art, photography, and architectural publishers Scheidegger & Spiess in Zürich and likewise attaches great importance to the design and material quality of its publications.
Office building for Philips, Stockholm – Axonometric view:
image : ArkDes samling / ArkDes collections., Sweden
The books are published predominantly in English and German and thanks to a competent and extensive sales and marketing network, our program is distributed worldwide. The company is independently owned and run by dedicated employees who bring their various strengths and experience to bear on their work.
Östra kyrkogården, Sweden:
photograph : Johan Dehlin
post updated 4 May 2021
Sigurd Lewerentz Architect – Key Projects
Major Building by this 20th Century Swedish Architect
Chapel of the Resurrection, Woodland Cemetery, Enskede, Stockholm, Sweden
Dates built: 1914-34
Architecture competition : 1914
This building design was a collaboration with fellow Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund
Chapel of Resurrection at the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm, Sweden:
photograph : Kalle Söderman, http://kjs.homeip.net, courtesy of Wikimedia commons
Skogskyrkogården (official name in English: The Woodland Cemetery) is a cemetery located in the Enskededalen district south of central Stockholm, Sweden. Its design reflects the development of architecture from Nordic Classicism to mature functionalism.
Skogskyrkogården came about following an international architecture competition in 1915 for the design of a new cemetery in Enskede in the southern part of Stockholm, Sweden. The entry called “Tallum” by this couple of young Swedish architects was selected.
Sigurd Lewerentz Buildings
St. Mark’s Church, Bjorkhagen
Date built: 1956-60
St. Peter’s Church, Klippan, Sweden
Date built: 1963-66
More Sigurd Lewerentz Architect info online soon
Location: Bjarta, Sweden, northeast Europe
Sigurd Lewerentz Architect Practice Information
This celebrated Swedish architect was born in 1885 and died in 1975
Sigurd was born in Bjarta, Sweden. Lewerentz and Asplund are generally recognised as two of the greatest Swedish architects of the 20th Century in Sweden, and came to worldwide attention. Most histories of World Architecture reference them and their collaboration – the Woodland Cemetery. Lewerentz was a Swedish Modernist. He died in Lund, Sweden in 1975.
His most celebrated work is surely Skogskyrkogården in Stockholm. The architects’ use of the natural landscape created an extraordinary environment of tranquil beauty that had a profound influence on cemetery design throughout the world.
Skogskyrkogården – Chapel of Resurrection, Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm, Sweden:
photo : Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The giant dark granite cross at the focus of the vista from the main entrance may have been based on a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, titled “Cross on the Baltic Sea” (1815), however the architects insisted that it was open to non-Christian interpretations.
Swedish Architectural Designs
Swedish Architecture
Swedish Architecture Designs – chronological list
Jo¨nko¨ping Bathhouse, Lake Vättern, Jönköping, southern Sweden
Design: White Arkitekter
photo © Jo¨nko¨ping Bathhouse
Jo¨nko¨ping Bathhouse Building in Sweden
20th Century Architecture
Buildings / photos for the Modern Swedish Architect Sigurd Lewerentz page welcome