Architect, Sweden 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,...