The center of Swedish activity in architecture during the 20th century was Stockholm, its capital city. Not only was Stockholm the locus of political, financial, and cultural power, but it was also the site of the major architecture school in Sweden, the Kunigligan Teknikiska Högskolan.

The two most significant buildings in Stockholm at the beginning of the 20th century, the Nordiska Museum and the Town Hall, represent different aspects of national consciousness in architecture. With its prominent position on the island of Djürgården, Isak Gustaf Clason’s (1856–1930) Nordiska Museum (1889–1907) was intended to be a temple for Swedish culture. Its towers recall the great castles of the Vasa period (Gripsholm, Vadstena, and Kalmar), and its gables recall the Trefaldighetskyrkan (1658) in Kristianstad. The entrance portal is in the form of a secular Gothic-style cathedral with Mother Svea and Odin. The use of stone from around Sweden and the naturalistic carving by local stonemasons recall principles enunciated by the English critic John Ruskin. At the center of the building is a great room, evoking both castle hall and ecclesiastical nave, and a monumental statue of Gustav Vasa by Carl Milles (1875–1955). In short, the building celebrates national culture through its great moments of history, both real and mythic, and representative examples of its geology.

By contrast, the Town Hall (1904–23), designed by Ragnar Östberg (1866–1945), is much less explicit in its sources; historic architecture is evoked through the lens of the native traditions of arts and crafts. Although made of brick, traditionally common in southern Sweden, its profile recalls an Italian communal palace rather than any Swedish building. Östberg has confected his historical references: part Romanesque, part Gothic, and part Byzantine. The great top-lit hall at the center of the building, the so-called Blue Hall, is slightly out of square, deliberately recalling the craft traditions of the Middle Ages.

New influences arrived from the United States and from Germany in the 1910s and 1920s. Sweden was especially receptive to North American architecture as a result of emigration. Many architects and artists traveled to America, some to stay, some to profit on their return. Ferdinand Boberg, for example, took advantage of his visit to Chicago for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 to study American building practices, and Gustaf Wickman (1858–1916) and Carl Westman (1866–1936) visited the United States and were inspired by H.H.Richardson. With the construction of a pair of concrete skeleton-frame skyscrapers, North American influence became technological and urbanistic. Over 60 meters tall, the skyscrapers were part of the 1919 master plan. The new street, Kungsgatan, broke through the old ridgeline, leaving the old street as a flying bridge. The northern skyscraper, inspired by Louis Sullivan, was designed by Sven Wallander (1890–1968) and employed a tripartite division and vertical pilaster strips “to describe,” as Wallander said, “the forces at work within.” The southern tower, similar in form, was built by Ivar Callmander (1880–1951) in 1925. The urbanistic effect recalls the multilevel visions of New York in Moses King’s Views of New York or even the most up- to-date American architecture at Grand Central Terminal in New York City, where the Park Avenue flyover had just been connected.

In this period, connections with Germany and Austria are decisive for the architecture of Stockholm, as can be seen in works such as the Liljevachs Konsthall (1913–16), built by Carl Bergsten (1879–1935) for the sawmill magnate C.F.Lilejevalch. It was built on a grid plan with concrete piers and brick screen in-fill. In its rationalism, it recalls the work of Peter Behrens and Heinrich Tessenow and thus marks a significant passage from Östberg’s Town Hall. Like Östberg’s Blue Hall in the Town Hall, the main gallery is lit by a clerestory window that encircles the room at the upper level, but the gray-concrete trim and columns alternate with the white of the walls to recall Behrens’ favored Italianate sources, as the coffered ceiling and decorative details further reveal. Bergsten also built the church at Hjorthagen (1904–06), which recalls Wiener Werkstätte designs. Architects such as Ivar Tengbom (1878–1968) also employed a simplified Italianate classicism.

The figure that most effectively represents the advanced trends of architecture in this period in Stockholm is Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940). In the early phase of his career, he combined apparent opposites: the traditions of Östberg’s folk architecture with the reductionist geometry of the Germanic countries. His Woodland Chapel (1920), for example, employed traditional materials (wrought iron, stone, and wood) but in rigid geometric order. In his designs with Sigurd Lewerentz (1885–1975), with whom he shared design responsibilities for the Woodland Cemetery (1915–40), these are integrated into the traditions of Swedish landscape made mythic with biblical references. Lewerentz’s Chapel of the Resurrection (1925) is strongly classical in inspiration, and in the Skandia Cinema (1922–23) and City Library (1920–28), Asplund’s classicizing tendencies emerge clearly.

Asplund soon moved in a new direction. In 1928, he was appointed chief designer for the Stockholm Exhibition organized by Slöjdföreningen (the Society for Arts and Crafts), which opened on 16 May 1930 on Djurgården. Asplund took on the task of shaping Swedish notions of European modernism. With his associates, notably Sven Markelius (1889–1972), Uno Åhrén (1897–1977), and Wolter B. Gahn (1890–1985), he provided a series of exhibition buildings decorated with flags, constructivist neon signs, nighttime floodlighting, and playful graphics to display new techniques of construction and new design approaches in housing, office design, and urbanism. With this group, which included Gregor Paulsson (1889–1977) and Eskil Sundahl (1890–1974), Asplund authored a manifesto of modern functionalism (1931) with the declarative title acceptera: “Accept the reality before you only through it do we have any prospect of mastering it, of coping with it so as to alter, and to create culture that is a handy tool for one’s life.” Swedish architects were receptive to the ideas of functionalism. With many architectural problems in need of solutions, notably in the field of housing, functionalism seemed to offer a logical path toward their resolution. The strip window, for example, which might need to be rationalized elsewhere, made perfect sense at 60 degrees north, where the sun barely moved beyond the horizontal much of the year. At another level, however, the success of functionalism reflected a broader cultural effort: 20th-century Swedes who wanted a modern Sweden based on values other than those of the state, the church, or bourgeois capitalism. The first public building in the functionalist style was Markelius and Åhrén’s Kårhus (student center, 1928–30) at the Kunigligan Teknikiska Högskolan. Lewerentz’s unadorned gridded facades for the Riksförsäkrings-verket (1930–32), or national insurance board, is a significant early example of government-commissioned functionalism.

It was not until after World War II that significant architectural inroads were made into the old fabric of the city, although not always with happy results. The Hötorscity office and commercial complex, for example, was started in 1945 and recalls Gordon Bunshaft’s Lever House in New York City. By David Hellden (1905–90), Anders Tengbom (1911–), Sven Markelius, Lars Erik Lallerstedt (1864–1955), and Backström (1903–92) and Reinius (1907–95), of the firm Backström and Reinius, Hötorscity consists of five multistoried slab blocks (with a significant pedestrian component). Construction was not completed until the mid-1950s. The development gave Stockholm an American-style architectural skyline. In 1971–73, Kulturhuset, a megastructure at Sergels Torg by the architect Peter Celsing (1920–74), inspired in part by Le Corbusier, provided a city-sponsored communal center with theaters, restaurants, meeting space, and exhibition space nearby. One of the most significant buildings of this period was Celsing’s gridded facade to the Riksbanken (1976), behind Kulturhuset, which suggested greater acceptance of historical forms. In effect, Lewerentz’s Riksförsäk-ringsverket grid of the 1930s was transformed into rusticated stone. Important church buildings by Celsing (Olaus Petrikyrkan, 1957–59) and Lewerentz (Markuskyrakan in Björkhagen, 1956–60) demonstrated a new attention to traditional materials.

By the 1970s, the era of large-scale city demolition was over. Protests in 1971 over the felling of a stand of elms in Kungsträd-gården to make way for a subway station marked the change in public sentiment, although the last of the great reconstructions was still ongoing at the end of the century. Cityterminalen (1986–89) by Arken Arkitektur with Ahlqvist and Culjat, Ralph Erskine (1914–), and Tengboms Arkitektkontor is a mixed public-private venture adjacent to the Normmalm shopping district designed to create a new business-conference center at Stockholm’s transportation node (bus, subway, and train). Slowed by the downturn in the economy at the beginning of the 1990s, when completed the project will form a new, efficient business center near the heart of the old city.

Any survey of Stockholm in the 20th century must touch on housing. At the beginning of the century, more than 50 percent of living quarters consisted of one room plus a kitchen or less. There were various experiments: garden city-style suburban developments at Gamla Enskede (1907) designed by Per Olof Hallman (1869–1941) and Herman Ygberg (1844–1917), functionalist-style worker housing at Svarneholmen (1928–1930) designed by Olof Thunström (1896–1962) of the firm KFAI, and the founding in 1936 by the City of Stockholm of the Familjebostäder and Stockholmshem housing companies, both of which were responsible for the erection of large-family housing in areas such as Abrahamsberg, Åkeshov, Riksby, and Åkeslund. The first examples of collective housing were designed by Markelius at John Ericssonsgatan (1934–35).

The nature of housing construction changed after World War II. In 1941, the Stockholm City Council decided to build a new subway system, and construction began between Slussen and Hökarängen (1950) and Hötorget and Vällingby (1952). The two lines were linked at the main train station, T-Centralen, in 1957, and housing was developed along these lines. The plan was to build developments of between 10,000 and 15,000 inhabitants centered on a subway station with small commercial and service centers, a school, and playing fields within walking distance. Among the newly incorporated suburbs, Vällingby is among the best known and became an international model for new town construction. Planning began as early as 1940, and ground was broken in 1951. With its commercial center designed partially by Backström and Reinius, its adjacent subway station by Magnus Ahlgren (1918–), churches by Celsing and Carl Nyrén (1917–), and segregated pedestrian/cycle paths, it was model of efficiency. Around the center were large slab blocks of multistory apartments, and farther out were row houses. Farsta (1953–61) was a similar counterpart south of central Stockholm. In 1965, the Swedish government sought to put an end to the housing shortage and developed the Miljonprogrammet (Million Dwelling Program), which also had an effect on Stockholm. In Rinkeby and Tensta, for example, huge anonymous apartment buildings were built, and although later examples improved this type at Norra Järva, Akalla, Husby, and Kista, they were not popular. Additionally, terrace housing on an American pattern— that is, without proximate public services and thus requiring the use of an automobile for all activities—was built in areas such as Kälvesta and Hässelby.

At the end of the 20th century, it is difficult to isolate projects that will have lasting architectural influence on the city. From a visual point of view, the Globen sports complex by Berg Arkitektkontor AB (1986–88) is the most important but is not universally welcome. The giant sphere looms over Södermalm like an escapee from a Walt Disney amusement park. More significant, Ralph Erskine’s Aula Magna (1988–90) at Frescati represents the continuing engagement of Stockholm’s urban architecture with its natural environment, and the Moderna Museet and Arkitekturmuseet (1990–98) by Rafael Moneo (1937–) on Skeppsholmen and Ricardo Bofill’s (1939–) Bågen Residence (1989–1991), a vast, crescent-shaped housing development at Södra station, are examples of the renewed influence of foreign architects, something not felt strongly in Stockholm.

NICHOLAS ADAMS

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.3 (P-Z).  Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.

ARCHITECTS: SWEDEN 

INTERNAL LINKS

SWEDEN;

FUTHER READING

Caldenby, Claes, Jöran Lindvall, and Wilfried Wang, 20th-Century Architecture: Sweden, Munich and New York: Prestel, 1998

Constant, Caroline, The Woodland Cemetery: Toward a Spiritual Landscape: Erik Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, 1915–61, Stockholm: Byggförlaget, 1994

Hall, Thomas, Huvudstad i omvandling: Stockholms planering och utbyggnad under 700 år, Stockholm: Sveriges Radio, 1999

Hall, Thomas and Katarina Dunér (editors), Den svenska staden: planering och gestaltning—från medeltid till industrialism, Stockholm: Sveriges Radios Forlag, 1997

Hultin, Olof, et al., The Complete Guide to Architecture in Stockholm, Stockholm: Arkitektur Forlag, 1998

Rudberg, Eva, The Stockholm Exhibition, 1930: Modernism’s Breakthrough in Swedish Architecture; Stockholmsutstallningen, 1930: modernismens genombrott i Svensk arkitektur (bilingual English-Swedish edition), Stockholm: Stockholmia, 1999