Lewerentz was born at Sandö in the parish of Bjärtrå in Västernorrland County, Sweden. He was the son of Gustaf Adolf Lewerentz and Hedvig Mathilda Holmgren.

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. I grew up with generations of architects in London who were very influenced by Lewerentz. Adam, you’re partly responsible for this, due to your time teaching. They’d travel to Sweden to see the projects, and they kept a huge passion for his work alive. His name was everywhere when I was first learning to be an architecture critic and journalist, but there was also a mystery about his work. As I write in the exhibition catalogue, there were architects, especially overseas, for whom Lewerentz felt like their own discovery. It was like, Wow, I’ve found this practitioner, and he’s doing all these things that mainstream modernism doesn’t do. The goal of this exhibit and publication was to situate the building’s position within a greater body of Scandinavian and Euro-pean architecture whose continued lineage remains valid within contemporary architectural practice and discourse. Through invited writings from most of the existing scholars of his work. Along with Göritz and Matteson, Hall is working on an expanded version of this content for publication with ACTAR, Barcelona in 2020. The outer vestibule is separated from the inner by large swing-doors of glass. In the inner vestibule are the cloakrooms, the counters of which have a total length of nearly 400 feet. In the middle of the vestibule, flanked by two broad marble stairs, which lead up to the foyer, stands Thalia, a work by Bror Marklund; he presents her full of life and, in deliberate contrast to convention, as slightly vulgar. The staircases leading up to the foyer are bounded by a white wrought-metal railing, which also runs round the foyer. This balustrade is repeated in the balcony. Along the inner wall of the foyer, beneath the balcony, runs a long series of concertina-doors which lead to the auditorium, while four doors in the inner vestibule lead to the lower stalls. Another three doors connect the foyer with a terrace communicating with the restaurant terrace, which seats 200 guests.While civilized and well-groomed English parks mixed with allées on-axis, and informal and formal open areas were features typical of the other competitors, Asplund and Lewerentz evoked a much more primitive imagery. The intervention of footpaths, which meandered freely through the forest, was minimal. Graves were freely and informally to be laid among the existing wild forest. Between 1933 and 1944 Lewerentz, together with his colleagues Erik Lallerstedt and David Helldén, created what is regarded of one of the masterpieces of functionalist architecture, Malmö Opera and Music Theatre ( Malmö Opera och Musikteater). The foyer is considered of particular beauty, with its open surfaces and beautiful marble staircases and it is adorned with a number of works of art by artists such as Carl Milles and Isaac Grünewald. He was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal for architecture in 1950. [5] 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. MFI was wondering whether Asplund’s death, in 1940, might have freed up Lewerentz’s imagination in some way?

Originally called the City Theater (Stadsteater in Swedish), it was (and remains) widely praised as a Functionalist triumph. “In spite of its size,” Architectural Review opined that, “the auditorium has an air of intimacy.” Educational Theatre Journal judged it “exceptionally well planned.” Long, Kieran, Johan Örn, and Mikael Andersson, editors (2021). Sigurd Lewerentz. Architect of Death and Life. Zürich: Park Books AG, 2021. (ISBN 9783038602323) ACWhat’s very particular about it is the way it’s faintly classical, but it’s not deco at all, because it has this incredible sense of modernity. It’s also where he first applied what became Idesta, the architectural-hardware firm he founded; it deploys this steel-and-glass assembly system extensively. It has a very particular atmosphere.

Campaigning for outstanding buildings

The office building for the Riksförsäkringsverket, the National Insurance Board [1932], was decisively important as well. It’s categorically different from other modern office buildings; it’s a palazzo type, in a way, with three facades facing the city—all more or less identical, one with the entrance in it—and then an oval glass curtain-walled interior. There’s nothing like it in Sweden. 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.” This authoritative new monograph on Sigurd Lewerentz is based on extensive research undertaken at ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design, where his archive and personal library are being kept. It features a wealth of drawings and sketches, designs for furniture and interiors, model photographs etc. from his estate, most of which published here for the first time, as well as with newly taken photographs of his realised buildings. Essays by leading experts explore Lewerentz’s life and work, his legacy and lasting significance from today’s perspective. A visit to the Woodland Cemetery is a carefully delineated journey through a landscape that Colin St John Wilson has called ‘tragic and sublime’. Visitors are embraced by funnel-shaped entrance walls and progress up an incline towards the loggia of the Crematorium. Straight ahead is a grassy mound topped with the birch forest known as ‘the grove of remembrance’. These apparently natural forms in fact took many years to prepare and are a central part of the architectural work of the Cemetery. A subtle romantic naturalism is key to the impact of the place: the mingling of forest and woodland, buildings and graves. 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

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.”Flora, Nicola, Paolo Giardiello and Gennaro Postiglione, editors (2002). Sigurd Lewerentz, 1885-1975. Milan: Electa Architecture, 2002. (ISBN 9781904313052)

After a train journey of several hours we arrived at the archive, high up in an office building in the city centre. There were just a few desks and chairs in the small, top-lit room, and a series of folders from the competition entry that we had come to see. We put on the white gloves that had been carefully laid out for us, and opened the delicate papers. Although most of the Woodland Cemetery was completed by 1940, Lewerentz continued to be involved with architectural and landscape projects there until finishing the Remembrance Garden in 1961. is very good on the quotidian and daily struggles ofarchitectural practise as a business – “… by now he was all too used to difficult, protracted commissions”– and very strong on historical facts, yet somewhat weaker on interpretation of the symbolic meaning ofLewerentz’s work. He sometimes seems (inadvertently?) content to remain trapped in the binaryfunctionalist opposition of “purely aesthetic” vs. “practical considerations”. German architect Wilfried Wang recently praised its “invention of a cyclical procession for the mourners to affirm the continuity of life.” This authoritative new monograph on Sigurd Lewerentz is based on extensive research undertaken at ArkDes, Sweden’s national center for architecture and design, where his archive and personal library are kept. It features a wealth of drawings and sketches, designs for furniture and interiors, model photographs, and more from his estate, most of which are published here for the first time, alongside new photographs of his realized buildings. Essays by leading experts explore Lewerentz’s life and work, his legacy, and lasting significance from a contemporary perspective.In the end, it is the solemn aspect of Lewerentz that most defines him. With St Peter’s, Adam Caruso has said: “He is compelling us to confront the condition of our existence, all of the time.” But without his sensuous and playful side, Lewerentz’s spirituality would become ponderous and his solemnity tedious. For, after all, frivolity is also part of existence. Enigmatic, mystical, technical; these words apply both to Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz (1885-1975) and his works. In this second installment of his revamped “ Beyond London” column for ArchDaily, Simon Henley of London-based practice Henley Halebrown discusses a potential influence that might help UK architects combat the economic hegemony currently afflicting the country – turning for moral guidance to the Brutalists of the 1960s. Campo-Ruiz, Ingrid (2015). From Tradition to Innovation: Lewerentz’s Designs of Ritual Spaces in Sweden, 1914-1966. The Journal of Architecture 20/1 (2015): 73-91. ISBN 978-1-138-80283-4. DOI:10.1080/13602365.2015.1009483. A publication was prepared to accompany the exhibition edited by Professors Matt Hall, Hansjörg Göritz (University of Tennessee) and Nathan Matteson (Depaul University) Hall’s role involved inviting all the major scholars on Lewerentz’s work as well as new emerging critics and historians. He also authored the introductory essay, curated and collected the archival material and provided all of the new photography from over ten years of documenting the architect’s work.