Erik Gunnar Asplund was among the most important Scandinavian architects of the
first half of the 20th century. His early work evolved from National Romanticism through
the sparse Nordic classicism of the World War I period and by 1930 embraced canonic
modernism. At the time of his death in 1940, his work assumed a personal direction,
influenced more by traditional architecture and a desire for symbolic content than by
contemporaneous design tenets. Asplund had a unique ability to create a sense of place in
his architecture, to manifest directly the context in which his works were situated through
manipulating landscape elements as forcefully as architectural ones. His untimely death
at age 55 occurred at the height of his creative powers and productivity.
Born in Stockholm, Asplund studied architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology.
After traveling to Germany on an Institute Scholarship, he returned to Stockholm and
helped establish, with some fellow students, the Klara School, an independent academy
of design. Supplanting the more normative neoclassical training of the period, the Klara
School, under the tutelage of Carl Bergsten, Ragnar Ösberg, Ivar Tengbom, and Carl
Westman, proposed a Romantic sensibility incorporating the influence of Scandinavian
vernacular design and handicrafts. The inclusion of vernacular and traditional sources of
expression had influenced Nordic architecture since the turn of the century, creating a
style known as National Romanticism. The National Romantic influences of Westman
and Ösberg, and especially Ösberg’s ability to combine symmetrical facade composition
with informal plan organization, informed Asplund’s early work: examples include the
villa project for Ivar Asplund (1911), the Karlshamn School competition entry (1912),
and the Villa Ruth (1914). These works are characterized by a vernacular imagery created
through using traditional board and batten siding, tilecovered gable-roof forms, and
carefully placed and proportioned window openings.
Asplund, while continuing to use vernacular imagery, began to use
classical motifs in his work, as witnessed in the first-place competition
entry for the Woodland Cemetery (1915, Stockholm; in collaboration with
Sigurd Lewerentz) and his Woodland Chapel (1919, Stockholm), which
blends Romanticism and Classicism. The simple, steeply pitched chapel
roof recalls Swedish vernacular buildings, whereas the austere Doric
portico, domed interior space, and white-rendered stucco walls reference
classicism. The Villa Snellman (1918), located in Djursholm, a Stockholm
suburb, continues Asplund’s dialogue between classicism and
Romanticism, as does the Lister County Courthouse (1921, Sölvesborg).
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In the Courthouse, however, the detail qualities of the building become
somewhat idiosyncratic, even exaggerated, in execution.
Woodland Chapel, Stockholm, Sweden, designed by Erik Gunnar
Asplund (1919)
Three
competition entries for urban projects entered during the period 1917–
22—the Göta Square (1917) and the Gustaf Adolf Square (1918), both in
Göteborg, and the Royal Chancellery (1922) in Stockholm—indicate that Asplund’s sensitivity in designing buildings within the historical context of the city is
equal to that within the natural landscape.
Paralleling the development of classicism in Scandinavia during the 1920s, the
classical-Romantic duality of Asplund’s earlier work gave way to a more explicit
expression of classical principles. The work of this period represents a serious attempt at
innovation within the context of classicism rather than a nascent eclecticism. Two
buildings in Stockholm, the Skandia Cinema (1923) and the Public Library (1928),
demonstrated his leadership position in this pan-Nordic movement. Whereas the Skandia
Cinema projects a certain playful and idiosyncratic use of classical elements, motifs, and
images, the Public Library has a simplicity and austerity reminiscent of the neoclassical
architecture of the French Enlightenment. Although the initial design for the library was
explicitly classical, with coffered dome, columnar entry porticos, and palazzo-like facade
treatment, the built work, while maintaining the organizational parti, was abstracted into two
simple volumetric elements: cube and cylinder. Preceded by a large reflecting pool, the
building sits slightly rotated in its parklike setting, further enhancing the monumentality
of the austere volumes. The cylinder houses a great rotunda, which contains the tiered,
open-stack lending hall. It is a monumental clerestoried space that recalls the work of the
French 18th-century architect Etienne-Louis Boullée. Exterior and interior surfaces are
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rendered in stucco, with finely proportioned openings and excellently crafted and
integrated sculptural detail that provide the building with a subtle power.
The Stockholm Public Library marks the end of Nordic classicism, for
“functionalism,” as modernism was termed in Scandinavia, had appeared in Sweden.
Asplund’s 1930 Stockholm Exhibition celebrated the emergence of functionalism in
Sweden and represented a fundamental change in sensibility for the architect. The design
for the Exhibition complex underwent three phases, the last occurring after Asplund
traveled to the Continent to visit extant examples of the new “modern” architecture. The
Stockholm Exhibition not only epitomized the mechanistic aesthetics of modernism but
also served as a propaganda instrument for illustrating its social programs. However,
unlike many modernist compositions that were isolated objects sitting in green, parklike
settings, Asplund’s complex assumed a more dense, urban configuration. The light,
machinelike pavilions were tied together by such traditional urban elements as squares,
concourses, cul-de-sacs, and garden courtyards. Here, space was as important as form.
The tall, constructivist-inspired advertising mast was a light, steel structure that held
signs and flags and provided a festive and energetic quality to the Exhibition.
Although Asplund’s Bredenberg Department Store (1935, Stockholm) was
a functionalist work, the State Bacteriological Laboratories (1937, Stockholm) signaled a move away from the canons of modernism. In
his last two major commissions, the Göteborg Law Courts Annex (won in competition in
1913, redesigned in 1925, and completed in 1936) and the Woodland Crematorium
(1940), Asplund’s reaction to functionalism solidified. The addition to the Law Courts,
which were designed by Nicodemus Tessin in 1672, was initially conceived of as a direct
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extension of the original facade. In the final design, Asplund attempted the difficult
proposition of developing a facade that would create a contrasting yet harmonizing
tension between the old and the new. The result extends the rhythm of the original facade
with a modern vocabulary while containing classical inferences. The central interior
atrium, composed of a delicate concrete framework and staircases and superbly detailed
wood paneling, has a timeless quality that transcends stylistic preferences.
Asplund’s final major work, the Woodland Crematorium, is a composition dominated
by the manipulation of the naturalistic qualities of the landscape, making the buildings
seem secondary on approach. Yet the positioning of the primary architectural elements of
loggia, wall, and cross actively gathers the surrounding landscape into a dynamic,
emotional experience. The complex contains references to traditional, classical, and
modern architecture: the planar quality of the buildings stems from modernism and the
loggia and impluvium from classical sources, whereas the material usage and landscape design root
the building to its Nordic context. The integration that Asplund achieved in the complex
through the synthesis of modern with classical and vernacular precedents makes the
Woodland Crematorium, in the final analysis, one of the truly compelling buildings of the
20th century.
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