Famous Swedish Architects from Tessin to Wingårdh

The best-known Swedish architects are Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, who designed the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Ragnar Östberg, who built the City Hall, and Gunnar Asplund, who designed the Public Library and the Woodland Cemetery and is regarded as Sweden's most internationally famous architect. They are joined by Sigurd Lewerentz, Ivar Tengbom, Sven Markelius, Peter Celsing and, in our own time, Gert Wingårdh. Here they are presented in chronological order with the buildings they are known for.

Facts

The Swedish Empire period: Tessin Father and Son

Swedish architectural history has long been about a few people with great power. Nicodemus Tessin the Elder (1615–1681) came from Stralsund, worked first under Simon de la Vallée and became the leading architect of the Swedish Empire period. He designed Drottningholm Palace and Kalmar Cathedral and brought Italian and French Baroque into the country. Jean de la Vallée gave the House of Nobility its curved säteri roof, a motif that later became typically Swedish.

His son Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (1654–1728) studied in Rome, got to know Bernini and followed the works at Versailles. His principal work is the Royal Palace in Stockholm, designed after the fire at Tre Kronor in 1697 as a Roman city palace in a Nordic capital. He also completed his father's works and replanned the centre of Stockholm, in schemes that never came to be.

The 18th and Early 19th Centuries: the Superintendents

After Tessin, Carl Hårleman (1700–1753) took over the building of the palace and brought Rococo into its rooms. His successor Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz (1716–1796) designed the Chinese Pavilion, the Drottningholm Palace Theatre and Adolf Fredrik Church, and headed the Office of the Superintendent (Överintendentsämbetet), which reviewed all public building in the kingdom. The chain from Tessin via Hårleman to Adelcrantz is clearly visible in the architect network.

The age of Gustav III found its building in Olof Tempelman's pavilion in Haga Park, and under Charles XIV John, Fredrik Blom designed Rosendal Palace on Djurgården. Blom is also known for prefabricated timber houses, the so-called Blom houses, which could be transported and put up again elsewhere.

The Turn of the Century: from Borrowed Styles to National Romanticism

In the second half of the 19th century Helgo Zettervall was the country's most powerful architect. He restored the cathedrals of Lund, Uppsala, Linköping and Skara, often with new towers after his own idea of the Middle Ages, which is now controversial. Nationalmuseum was designed by the German Friedrich August Stüler. Isak Gustaf Clason built the Nordic Museum and became a teacher to a whole generation.

That generation created National Romanticism. Ragnar Östberg devoted more than twenty years to Stockholm City Hall, opened in 1923. Carl Westman designed the Courthouse (Rådhuset) in Stockholm and the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg, Lars Israel Wahlman the Engelbrekt Church and Fredrik Lilljekvist the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten). Several of them taught at the independent Klara School in Stockholm from 1910, where young architects such as Asplund and Lewerentz studied.

Asplund, Lewerentz and the Mid-20th Century

Ivar Tengbom moved from National Romanticism to a simplified classicism with the Concert Hall and the Match Palace (Tändstickspalatset). Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940) is the Swedish architect who has had the greatest influence abroad. He designed the Public Library in Nordic Classicism, was chief architect of the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 and co-wrote the manifesto acceptera. Together with Sigurd Lewerentz he shaped the Woodland Cemetery. After a long pause, Lewerentz built St Mark's Church and St Peter's in Klippan; the two have a guide of their own, Asplund and Lewerentz.

Sven Markelius co-wrote acceptera and, as city planning director, led the planning of Vällingby, whose centre was designed by the firm Backström & Reinius. The Englishman Ralph Erskine came to Sweden in 1939 and stayed; he built for the cold at Svappavaara and designed Aula Magna at Stockholm University. Peter Celsing designed Kulturhuset at Sergels torg, the Riksbank building and Filmhuset.

Today: Wingårdh and the Large Practices

Since 1970, Swedish architecture has increasingly been the work of firms, but a few names stand out. Gert Wingårdh began in the Postmodernism of the 1980s and has designed Universeum in Gothenburg, the Swedish embassy House of Sweden in Washington, Friends Arena and Aula Medica. He has won the Kasper Salin Prize, the country's foremost architecture prize, several times. White Arkitekter, founded in Gothenburg in 1951, has become known for large timber buildings such as Sara Cultural Centre in Skellefteå.

All architects with a page of their own can be found under Architects, and in the network you can see who learned from whom: from Tessin the Elder to his son, from Clason to Östberg and from Asplund onwards to Alvar Aalto and Ralph Erskine. Their buildings are gathered in the guide to famous buildings in Sweden.

How to Recognise the Architect

Exercise

Who designed Stockholm Public Library?