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Sigurd Lewerentz and the ‘Half-Open Door’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Vaughan Hart
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Extract

The importance of the Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz (1885–1975) to the development of the Modern Movement has only recently been recognized. Following Lewerentz’s confirmation at the age of eighteen he was a life-long Bible-reading Lutheran, the established religion in Sweden, and Lewerentz’s well known churches are testimony to his ability to design sacred space which reinterpreted the Lutheran mass. It is within this scriptural context, albeit modified by Swedish cremation policy, that this article examines probably the most famous and monumental of Lewerentz’s works, the Woodland cemetery and crematorium, Stockholm (the Skogskyrkogården).

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 39 , 1996 , pp. 181 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1996

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References

Notes

1 See Ahlin, Janne, Sigurd Lewerentz, arkitekt (Stockholm, 1985 Google Scholar) (based primarily on the author’s personal knowledge of Lewerentz and his papers and drawings); all following references are to the partial translation by Westerlund, Kerstin published as: Sigurd Lewerentz, architect 1885-1975 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987)Google Scholar. Wilson, Colin St John, Architectural Reflections: Studies in the Philosophy and Practice of Architecture (Oxford, 1992), p. 110-37, p. 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar (largely a reprint of ‘Masters of Building: Sigurd Lewerentz’, Architects Journal, 13 April 1988, pp. 32-46; see also Edward Williams, ‘The Missing Years’, in ibid., pp. 47-52). Ahlberg, Hakon, ‘Sigurd Lewerentz’, Byggmästaren 19 (1945), pp. 359-60Google Scholar, ‘Sigurd Lewerentz’, Arkitektur 9 (1963) (entire issue), and ‘Sigurd Lewerentz 1855–1975: The Dilemma of Classicism’, AA Files: Annals of the Architectural Association School of Architecture 19 (1990), pp. 82-90. The best study is: Constant, Caroline, The Woodland Cemetery: Towards a Spiritual Landscape (Stockholm, 1994)Google Scholar.

2 Lewerentz restored Uppsala Cathedral and built the churches of St Mark’s in Björkhagen and St Petři in Klippan. For the Lutheran aspect of St Petri church see Wilson, ibid., p. 119.

3 On Schlyter see Johnsson, Ulf G., ‘De Första Svenska Krematorierna och Deras Förutsättningar’ (trans. ‘The first Swedish crematoria and the conditions under which they emerged’), Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 15 (1964), pp. 3–4 Google Scholar, and Constant, Woodland Cemetery, pp. 16-19. On Hälsingborg and early crematorium design see for example Jacobsen, Arne, ‘Kapel og Krematorium i Malmö’, Byggmästaren 19 (1945), pp. 360-79Google Scholar; Ahlberg, ‘Lewerentz’, Arkitektur (entire issue); Constant, ibid., pp. 19-20.

4 For the different areas of responsibility see Constant, ibid., e.g. pp. 45, 164–65; p. 50 notes: ‘Despite strong differences in both their personalities and their individual designs, the result is truly collaborative’.

5 The argument arose, according to Janne Ahlin’s report, because the cemetery board had found Lewerentz slow and difficult to work with, and had consequendy appointed Asplund sole architect of the chapel of the Holy Cross without properly notifying Lewerentz of this fact. Ahlin, Lewerentz, pp. 117-18. See also Constant, ibid., pp. 86-87.

6 Wilson, Reflections, pp. 150-52.

7 Wrede, Stuart, The Architecture of Erik Gunnar Asplund (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980), p. 233 n. 66Google Scholar. See also Constant, Woodland Cemetery, pp. 50, 77.

8 See Ahlberg, ‘Lewerentz’, AA Files, pp. 83-85, and Wrede, ibid., pp. 69-70.

9 Constant, Woodland Cemetery, pp. 164-65.

10 Johansson, Bengt O. H., ‘Skogskyrkogården och den sanitära estetikén’, Arkitekturi 2 (1982), p. 29 Google Scholar: ‘it must have been in the spring, 1932, that Asplund and Lewerentz suddenly discovered the landscape which had been excavated and blasted inside the entrance … In May 1932 the proposal first showing the “sublime” biblical landscape picture which now dominates the impression of the woodland cemetery was ready’.

11 On the symbolic qualities of the cemetery landscape and chapels see Hans Nordenström, ‘Uppståndelsekap-ellet på Skogskyrkogården’, in Ahrbom, Nils, HUS. 27 arkitekters val ur Suensk byggnadskonst (Föratt hylla Professor Nils Ahrbom på hans 60 års dag. Redaktionskommitté: ed. Borgström, H. and others) (Stockholm, 1965). pp. 120-33Google Scholar; Johansson, Bengt O. H., ‘Skogskyrkogården i Enskede, 1914-1940’, unpublished dissertation (Uppsala, 1961)Google Scholar, and on the cemetery’s antecedents and symbolism see Johansson, ‘Skogskyrko-gården’, Arkitektur, pp. 26-29. See also the Swedish edition of Ahlin, Lewerentz.

12 Constant, Woodland Cemetery, esp. pp. 1, 13, 41, 100, 103, 107: influences from Worringer and Kandinsky, p. 24.

13 The stylistic shifts in the Woodland Cemetery buildings form the structure in Wrede’s Asplund. See also Wrede, , ‘Landscape and Architecture: the Work of Erik Gunnar Asplund’, Perspecta: The Yale University Architecture Journal 20 (1983), p. 205 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Wrede, Asplund, pp. 32, 204.

15 Wilson, Reflections, pp. 112, 130.

16 Constant, Woodland Cemetery, p. 1, see also p. 103.

17 Arnold Böcklin’s Toteninsel (‘Island of the Dead’, five versions from 1880) may have been as relevant a source as works by Friedrich. On parallels with Friedrich see Wrede, Asplund, pp. 26-32, and ‘Landscape’, pp. 198-201. See also Constant, ibid., pp. 24, 134.

18 This phrase was used in Wrede, ‘Landscape’, p. 206.

19 In 1990 the gap between the chapel and the porch was filled in (on pragmatic grounds). Asplund also detached the portico from the main chapel of 1935-40. Whilst the angle of the portico is recorded in Lewerentz’s final chapel plan, even the architect’s elevations and sections of the chapel drawn at the same time curiously fail to register this shift (these drawings were made by Lewerentz after the building was completed). Lewerentz’s site plan/elevation projection (c.1923) of this area does however record the portico’s shift in angle. This drawing is in the Swedish Museum of Architecture, Stockholm (the Arkitekturmuseet), and published in Andersson, Henrik and Bedoire, Fredric, Swedish Architecture: Drawings 1940-1970 (Stockholm, 1986), p. 195 Google Scholar. Shifts in angle are not uncommon in Swedish architecture, such as that in Östberg’s Stockholm City Hall (1913-23) and in Asplund’s Villa Snellman (1917-18). The shifts in angle in these designs would appear to be made without symbolic intent, however, and unlike Lewerentz’s chapel they do not form part of a landscape composed of ‘biblical’ symbols.

20 Knight, Stuart in ‘Sigurd Lewerentz’, International Architect 8.1 (1982), p. 34 Google Scholar.

21 Nordenström, ‘Uppståndelsekapellet’, pp. 120–33 (passage translated in Ahlin, Lewerentz, pp. 80-81).

22 Wilson, Reflections, pp. 114-16.

23 Ibid., p. 150.

24 Constant, Woodland Cemetery, p. 69.

25 Asplund, Erik Gunnar, ‘Krematoriebygget’ (trans. ‘The Crematorium Building’), Byggmästaren (1940), p. 248 Google Scholar.

26 See Johansson, ‘Skogskyrkogården’, Arkitektur, p. 29 and Wrede, Asplund, p. 189. On the main chapel see Hodin, Josef, ‘Det Nya Krematoriet pa Skogskyrkogården’ (trans. ‘The New Crematorium at the Woodland Cemetery’) Ignis (Swedish Cremation Society Publication, 1940), p. 150 Google Scholar. See also Constant, Woodland Cemetery, chapel siting pp. 80, 83, main chapel design pp. 84-101.

27 See Ahlin, Lewerentz, p. 64 and Constant, ibid., p. 41.

28 Markelius, Sven, ‘Uppståndelsekapellet’, Byggmästaren (1926), pp. 233-37Google Scholar (partially translated in Stuart Knight, ‘Lewerentz’, pp. 34-35). See also Sigurd Lewerentz, ‘Uppgifter Rörande Skogskyrkogårdens Uppståndelsekapell Med Tillhörande Byggnader’, in ibid., pp. 238-41.

29 See Johansson, ‘Skogskyrkogården’, Arkitektur, p. 29, and Constant, Woodland Cemetery, p. 58.

30 At Hälsingborg an existing canal was channelled into a dark vault under the main chapel’s entrance (recalling the river Styx flowing into Hades) and emerged on the other side of the chapel in a cascade, thereby reflecting the Scandinavian Cremation Movement’s cultivation of symbols of death and resurrection. See Wrede, Asplund, pp. 239-40 n.133, and Wrede, ‘Landscape and Architecture’, p. 201. See also Ahlberg, ‘Lewerentz’, Arkitektur.

31 The portico was even more disengaged in an early version of the design; see Ahlin, Lewerentz, p. 81.

32 In his section Lewerentz shows sculpture on the ‘inside’ tympanum (that is, facing the chapel), which obviously would never have been seen.

33 Wrede notes that, in alluding to both the tomb and the womb, this was ‘appropriate to the cremation movement’s symbolic coupling of death and rebirth’ (Asplund, p. 204: see also p. 38).

34 See Haarløv, Britt, The Half-Open Door, A Common Symbolic Motif within Roman Sepulchral Sculpture (Odense: Odense UP, 1977)Google Scholar, on the temple-like qualities, see p. 31, on the theme of Resurrection, see esp. pp. 20-21, 27, 36, 45, 48, 50-56. See also Goldman, Bernard, The Sacred Portal, A Primary Symbol in Ancient Judaic Art (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1966)Google Scholar, and Wujewski, Tomasz, Anatolian Sepulchral Stelae in Roman Times (Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz UP, 1991), pp. 36–40 Google Scholar.

35 See Haarløv, ibid., p. 9.

36 On this casket see ibid., p. 41, and Lieselotte Kötzsche, ‘Die trauernden Frauen. Zum Londoner Passimskästchen’, in Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture presented to Peter Lasko, ed. Buckton, D., Heslop, T. A. (Stroud, 1994), pp. 80–90 Google Scholar. The presentation of the cave as a mausoleum in medieval Bible manuscripts became common enough: for example, the cave is idealized as a mausoleum on the cover of a Sacramentarium (1104-14) of the Emperor Henry II, from Bamberg (in the collection of the Staatsbibliothek, Munich). Indeed a sepulchre had itself stood on the supposed site of Christ’s tomb from the time of Constantine, and Leon Battista Alberti took this building as the model for his design of the Rucellai Sepulchre in S. Pancrazio, Florence, of 1467. See Krautheimer, Richard, Studies in Early Christian, Medieval and Renaissance Art (London, 1971), pp. 69–106 Google Scholar, and Borsi, Franco, Leon Battista Alberti (New York, 1987 edn), pp. 75–90 Google Scholar. On the integration of Pagan and Christian customs see Constant, Woodland Cemetery, p. 41.

37 See Haarløv, ibid., p. 20.

38 See Mikkola, Kirmo and Linn, Björn, ‘The transition from classicism to functionalism in Scandinavia’, in Classical Tradition and the Modem Movement (trans. Den Klassiska Traditionen och Modemismen), ed. Salokorpi, A. (the 2nd International Alvar Aalto Symposium, Helsinki, 1982), pp. 42–105 Google Scholar.

39 See Aalto, Alvar, ‘Menneitten Aikojen Motiivit’, Arkkitehti (1922), p. 25 Google Scholar (trans. ‘Motifs From Times Past’ in Sketches, ed. Schildt, G., trans, by Wrede, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978), p. 2)Google Scholar. Discussed in Mikkola, ibid., p. 44.

40 Illustrated in Ahlberg, ‘Lewerentz’, Arkitektur, p. 222. See also Ahlin, Lewerentz, pp. 34, 63-64 and Constant, Woodland Cemetery, pp. 98–99. Asplund designed a number of tombs based on Tuscan precedents, see Wrede, Asplund, pp. 94-96.

41 Wrede notes that the Woodland cemetery design was drawn ‘partly from Nordic and Mediterranean landscape traditions and partly from burial archetypes’ (ibid., p. 27). On this theme see Constant, ibid., pp. 40-41.

42 Vitruvius, , De architectura, IV, 1, 9–10 Google Scholar. Lewerentz clearly followed Vitruvius in making the height of his Corinthian capitals match the thickness (or ‘module’) of the column (IV, 1, 11). On the chapel’s proportions see Nordenström, ‘Uppstindelsekapellet’, pp. 120-33. Lewerentz’s drawing of the portico (from 1924) is published in Ahlin, Lewerentz, p. 70, who discusses the proportions of the chapel on pp. 78-80.

43 Haarløv, Half-Open Door, p. 52.

44 Roman tomb pediments had frequently carried symbolism representing the heavens, supported by Corinthian columns: see Haarløv, ibid., p. 52.

45 See Johnsson, ‘Första Svenska’, pp. 3-4 and Constant, Woodland Cemetery, pp. 17, 19-20.

46 Lewerentz objected to the presence of an altar in a funerary chapel, as it interfered with the desired intimacy between mourners and catafalque. See Ahlin, Lewerentz, p. 77.

47 See Wilson, Reflections, p. 112. On this design see also Ahlberg, ‘Lewerentz’, Arkitektur.

48 The emblem for the Stockholm Exhibition, designed by Lewerentz, was a soaring wing based on the ancient Egyptian falconman, whose spirit was presumably being revived by the exhibition’s new architecture. This motif was used on the exhibition poster and on a pin; see Ahlin, Lewerentz, p. 94. The use of symbolism was quite common in Asplund’s early work, from Golden Age decoration used on Government grain silos (1917) to a ‘starry’ night sky in the Skandia cinema (1922-23). Wrede points out the predominance in his designs of the theme of pairing opposites, which included life and death, in Asplund, pp. 84-85, 221, 224.

49 See Wrede, ibid., pp. 21-23, 224, and on Asplund’s concern with the psychology of bereavement see Constant, Woodland Cemetery, pp. 2, 59, 98. See also Hart, Vaughan, ‘Carl Jung’s Alchemical Tower at Bollingen’, RES 25 (Spring 1994), pp. 36–50 Google Scholar.

50 Aalto, ‘E. G. Asplund: In Memoriam’, in Schildt, Sketches, pp. 66-67.

51 Markelius, ‘Uppståndelsekapellet’, pp. 233-37. On this passage see Ahlberg, ‘Lewerentz’, AA Files, p. 86.