Lister County Courthouse

From outside, Asplund’s courthouse in Sölvesborg looks like a simple manor house. Inside, the courtroom lies as a round room in the middle of the square building. It is one of the most refined small buildings of Nordic Classicism.

The Lister district in western Blekinge needed a new courthouse, and Gunnar Asplund was given the commission in 1917. The building was erected in 1919–1921 in Sölvesborg. At the same time Asplund was working on the Woodland Cemetery and Villa Snellman, and the courthouse is one of his most important early works.

From outside the building looks like a simple, symmetrical manor house with rendered façades. The plan is square, but in the middle lies the courtroom as a round room. Between the round room and the straight outer walls are smaller rooms and corridors, and the transitions between them are playfully shifted. The courtroom is lit from above, and Asplund also designed the furnishings and furniture.

The building is no longer used as a courthouse. It is an example of how Asplund, in Nordic Classicism, combined classical forms with a new freedom in planning. The round room in the square building recurs on a larger scale in the Stockholm City Library.

• Nordic Classicism
• Gunnar Asplund