Gunnar Asplund's Gothenburg: The Transformation of Public Architecture in Interwar Europe

GUNNAR ASPLUND’S GOTHENBURG

GUNNAR ASPLUND’S GOTHENBURG

The Transformation of Public

Architecture in Interwar Europe

Nicholas Adams

The Pennsylvania State University Press

University Park, Pennsylvania

The publication of this book was supported in part by funds from Higab AB (Gothenburg), the Birgitta and Peter Celsing Foundation (Stockholm), and the Lucy Maynard Salmon Fund, Vassar College.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Adams, Nicholas, 1947– , author.

Gunnar Asplund’s Gothenburg : the transformation of public architecture in interwar Europe / Nicholas Adams.

   p.  cm—(Buildings, landscapes, and societies)

Summary: Explores the work of Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund, focusing on his courthouse extension (1933–36) in the port city of Gothenburg. Places Asplund’s building into the wider context of public architecture in Europe from 1900 to 1950—Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-271-05984-6 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Göteborgs Radhus (Göteborg, Sweden).

2. Göteborg (Sweden)—Buildings, structures, etc.

3. Asplund, Erik Gunnar, 1885–1940.

4. Public architecture—Sweden—Göteborg—History—20th century.

5. Public architecture—Europe—History—20th century.

I. Title.

II. Series: Buildings, landscapes, and societies.

NA4475.S82G673 2014

725’.15094867—dc23

2014005737

Copyright © 2014 The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Printed in China by Oceanic Graphic International

Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,

University Park, PA 16802-1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z39.48–1992.

Frontispiece: Map of the city of Gothenburg, 1921, detail (fig. 3).

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A NOTE ON TRANSLATION

Introduction: Public Architecture in the Modern World

CHAPTER 1    Sweden: Gothenburg and Its Courthouse

CHAPTER 2    Asplund’s Multiple Visions, 1913–1937

CHAPTER 3    Asplund’s Building and Modern Law

CHAPTER 4    Asplund’s Reputation and the Catastrophic Reception

CHAPTER 5    Managing Modernisms at Home

CHAPTER 6    Public Architecture After Asplund

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURE 1

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, 1934–36, view from the northeast. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-072. Photo: Stig Sjöstedt.

FIGURE 2

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, 1934–36, view of the interior hall, looking from east to west. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-079. Photo: Stig Sjöstedt.

FIGURE 3

Map of the city of Gothenburg, 1921. From Historiskt kartverk över Göteborg upprättat för Jubileumsutställningen i Göteborg 1923 (Gothenburg: Wald. Zachrisson, 1923). Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg.

FIGURE 4

Gunnar Asplund, Karl Johan School, Gothenburg, 1915–24, main façade. Photo: author.

FIGURE 5

Map of Sweden showing the sites of major interwar town halls and courthouse buildings. GingkoMaps project.

FIGURE 6

Erik Dahlbergh, old courthouse, Jönköping, 1692–99, façade. Knut Björlingson.

FIGURE 7

Martin Nyrop, Copenhagen Town Hall, 1892–1905. John Keren, Copenhagen.

FIGURE 8

Pierre de la Roche, Vadstena Castle, 1555–99. Bengt Wennlund, Upplandsmuseet, Uppsala, 1918–23.

FIGURE 9

Isak Gustaf Clason, Norrköping Courthouse, 1907–10.

FIGURE 10

Carl Westman, Stockholm Courthouse, 1911–15. Svenska litografiska, Stockholm.

FIGURE 11

John Leonard Björkfeldt, Stora torget, later Gustaf Adolf square, Gothenburg, ca. 1840. Stadsmuseum, Gothenburg, GM: 7816.

FIGURE 12

Gothenburg Courthouse, reconstruction drawing. From C. R. A. Fredberg, Det gamla Göteborg: Lokalhistoriska skildringar, personalia och kulturdrag (Gothenburg, 1921), 2:468.

FIGURE 13

Gothenburg Courthouse, reconstruction views showing its expansion. Courtesy of Ewa Malinowski and Solveig Schulz, from Malinowski and Schulz, Ny puts på gammal fasad: Fasadrenovering av Göteborgs rådhus (Stockholm: Statens råd för byggnadsforskning, 1982), 14.

FIGURE 14

Aerial view of Gustaf Adolf square, Gothenburg, looking west. G. T. & Co.

FIGURE 15

Plan of Gustaf Adolf square before the intervention of Gunnar Asplund. Drawing by Jack Self, London.

FIGURE 16

Swedbank, originally Rikets Sänders Bank, Södra Hamngatan, Gothenburg, architect Viktor Adler, 1886. Photo: author.

FIGURE 17

Bengt Erland Fogelberg, statue of Gustav Adolf II, 1849.

FIGURE 18

Gustav Adolfsdagen celebrations, ca. 1900. Axel Stiberg & Co., Gothenburg.

FIGURE 19

Elias Martin, view of central Gothenburg across Stora Hamnkanal to the west, ca. 1780. Stadsmuseum, Gothenburg, GM: 18777.

FIGURE 20

Lithograph after drawing by C. G. Berger, 1859. Stadsmuseum, Gothenburg, GhmPK:228.

FIGURE 21

Sigfrid Ericson, proposal for a new courthouse and reorganized Gustaf Adolf square. From Ericson, Bidrag till lösning af Göteborgs rådhusfråga (Gothenburg: Wald. Zachrisson, 1905), 8.

FIGURE 22

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, competition entry Andante, 1913, perspective collage, view toward the west. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, B2047.

FIGURE 23

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, competition entry Andante, 1913, view of the southern face. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, B2049.

FIGURE 24

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, competition entry Andante, 1913, ground plan. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, B2040.

FIGURE 25

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, revised elevation design dated 12 July 1916. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, A538.

FIGURE 26

Ernst Torulf, Gothenburg Central Post Office, 1913–25, view from the west. Jolin & Wilkenson, Gothenburg.

FIGURE 27

Gunnar Asplund, Gustaf Adolf square, Gothenburg, renovation proposal, November 1915, aerial view. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, E84.

FIGURE 28

Gunnar Asplund, Gustaf Adolf square, Gothenburg, renovation proposal, November 1915, plan. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, E83.

FIGURE 29

Gunnar Asplund, Gustaf Adolf square, Gothenburg, renovation proposal, winning entry for the competition of 1918. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, A 559: 2.

FIGURE 30

Elias Martin, view of central Gothenburg across Stora Hamnkanal to the west, ca. 1780, detail. Stadsmuseum, Gothenburg, GM: 18777.

FIGURE 31

Gunnar Asplund, proposal plan for the renovation of Gustaf Adolf square, 15 February 1920. Collection Centre canadien d’architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, DR2000:0024.

FIGURE 32

Gunnar Asplund, proposal for the opening of the west wall of Gustaf Adolf square, ca. 1919. Collection Centre canadien d’architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, DR1999:0022.

FIGURE 33

Gunnar Asplund, Gustaf Adolf square seen from the south, with the proposed new city hall and a balloon seller, ca. 1920. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, A595.

FIGURE 34

Gunnar Asplund, proposal for the façade to the courthouse extension, 15 February 1920. Collection Centre canadien d’architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, DR1994:0109.

FIGURE 35

Gunnar Asplund, north-south section through the proposed courthouse extension. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-841 HE.

FIGURE 36

Proposal for the renovation of Gustaf Adolf square, June 1924, view from the south. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, A560.

FIGURE 37

Arvid Bjerke, R. O. Swensson, Ernst Torulf, and Sigfrid Ericson, Gothenburg Art Museum, 1923, at the head of Götaplatsen. Malmeströms konstförlag, Gothenburg.

FIGURE 38

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, proposal of 1925, façade. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1990-04-11. Photo: Matti Östling.

FIGURE 39

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse Extension, proposal of 1925, interior hall. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1990-04-14. Photo: Matti Östling.

FIGURE 40

Carl Bergsten, Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm, 1913–16, entry hall. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1962-102-030.

FIGURE 41

Arvid Bjerke and F. O. Peterson, Amerikahuset, Gothenburg, 1919–25. A. B. Götebörgs Konstförlag.

FIGURE 42

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, proposed façade, 1934. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1990-04-15.

FIGURE 43

Carl Bergsten, Gothenburg City Theater, proposal, 1927. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, A15005.

FIGURE 44

Carl Bergsten, Gothenburg City Theater, proposal, 1930. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, A14961.

FIGURE 45

Carl Bergsten, Gothenburg City Theater, completed 1934, view from the west with Götaplatsen and the statue of Poseidon by Carl Milles. Carl Alfred Träff, Gothenburg.

FIGURE 46

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, façade proposal, 24 May and 6 July 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1990-04-18. Photo: Nikolaj Alsterdal.

FIGURE 47

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, façade proposal, spring–summer 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-984.

FIGURE 48

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, façade proposal, spring–summer 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-986 HE.

FIGURE 49

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, façade proposal, winter 1936(?). Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-1032 HE.

FIGURE 50

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view across the courtyard to the glass wall of the new building, late 1934. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-878.

FIGURE 51

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view from the inside to the south, summer 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-1086 HE.

FIGURE 52

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, proposed plan, September 1925. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1990-04-10. Photo: Matt Östling.

FIGURE 53

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, proposed plan, dated 26 June 1935. Region- och stadsarkivet, Gothenburg, Byggnadsnämnden, Byggnadsavdelningen, Bygglovsritning Nordstaden 11:7 ritning nr. 32509 13, 1935.

FIGURE 54

Gunnar Asplund, proposal for a courtroom, 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-1392 HE.

FIGURE 55

Gunnar Asplund, proposal for a Bible stand, 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-1498 HE.

FIGURE 56

Gunnar Asplund, design for the chair and table for the accused, 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1998-02-1637 HE, recto. Photo: Nikolaj Alsterdal.

FIGURE 57

Gunnar Asplund, alternative study for the height of the judge’s platform, 1935. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1998-02-2363.

FIGURE 58

Gunnar Asplund, interior decoration in the chief magistrate’s chamber in the old courthouse, 1936–37. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1962-101-1430. Photo: Stig Sjöstedt.

FIGURE 59

Gunnar Asplund, study for courtroom lighting, showing changes in design between 1937 and 1938. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-2242.

FIGURE 60

Gunnar Asplund, designs for a wicker chair, July–August 1936. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-1834.

FIGURE 61

Gunnar Asplund, design for the façade of the Gothenburg Courthouse extension, 1936–37. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-02-993.

FIGURE 62

Ivar Johnsson, The Guilty and the Good, 1936. From Dagens nyheter, 4 November 1936, p. 1.

FIGURE 63

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, modern collage reflecting what Asplund published in 1939 as the design approved by the committee in 1937. From Göteborgs rådhus: Om- och tillbyggnad 1935–1937; Berättelse avgiven av Rådhusbyggnadskommittén år 1938 (Gothenburg: Oscar Isacson), 47. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-072, photo: Stig Sjöstedt; collaged with Ivar Johnsson’s competition entry from Dagens nyheter, 4 November 1936, p. 1.

FIGURE 64

Erik Grate, models for the reliefs to be inserted in the windows, 1937. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-105.

FIGURE 65

Gerhard Henning, Naked Girl, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, courtyard, 1939. Photo: author.

FIGURE 66

Alexander Z. Grinberg, House of the Soviets, Nizhnii Novgorod, 1929–32. Photo: Anatolii Vasil’evich Skurikhin, Photostudio Izogiz, Moscow.

FIGURE 67

Willem Dudok, Hilversum Town Hall, 1928–31.

FIGURE 68

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, photomontage for the League of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, 1926–1927. Collection Centre canadien d’architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, PH 1980:1015:325. © 2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / F.L.C.

FIGURE 69

Tony Garnier and Jacques Debat-Ponsan, Boulogne-Billancourt Hôtel de Ville, 1931–34. Abeille-cartes, 8 rue du Caire, Lyna-Paris, Éditions Nozais.

FIGURE 70

Tony Garnier and Jacques Debat-Ponsan, Boulogne-Billancourt Hôtel de Ville, 1931–34, main hall. Archives municipales de Boulogne-Billancourt.

FIGURE 71

Boris Iofan, perspective drawing for the Palace of the Soviets, Moscow, after 1934. Collection Centre canadien d’architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, PH 1998:0026:005; gift of Howard Schickler and David Lafaille.

FIGURE 72

Marcello Piacentini, Palazzo di Giustizia, Milan, 1931–41. Guido Colombo.

FIGURE 73

Courthouse extension building, Leipzig, 1933–36. From Hermann Seeger, Öffentliche Verwaltungsgebäude (Leipzig: J. M. Gebhardt’s Verlag, 1943), 83.

FIGURE 74

Nicodemus Tessin and Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse and extension, façades facing Gustaf Adolf square. Underlying blueprint dated March 1938. Drawing by Giovanni de Flego, Trieste.

FIGURE 75

Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse extension, Köpmansgatan elevation. Drawing by Giovanni de Flego, Trieste.

FIGURE 76

Nicodemus Tessin and Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse and extension, first-floor plan. Underlying blueprint last corrected 1987. Drawing by Giovanni de Flego, Trieste.

FIGURE 77

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view to the southwest along Köpmansgatan at the level change. Photo: author.

FIGURE 78

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, rear (western) façade, facing the Kristine Church. Photo: author.

FIGURE 79

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of the courtyard and glass wall to the extension. Photo: author.

FIGURE 80

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, revolving-door entrance to the main hall. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-44-145.

FIGURE 81

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of the area next to the glass wall. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-082. Photo: Stig Sjöstedt.

FIGURE 82

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of the monumental stairs leading to the second floor. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-081. Photo: G. E. Kidder Smith.

FIGURE 83

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of the hall toward the west. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-109-071.

FIGURE 84

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of the hall toward the east. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-104-0165.

FIGURE 85

The school clock (Gymnasieklockan), Västerås.

FIGURE 86

Nicodemus Tessin and Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse and extension, second-floor plan. Original blueprint dated 1938. Drawing by Giovanni de Flego, Trieste.

FIGURE 87

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of the second-floor barrier and consultation areas looking east. Photo: author.

FIGURE 88

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view across the second-floor seating area looking west from the consultation area between courtrooms A and B. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-104-0160.

FIGURE 89

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of courtroom B, facing Gustaf Adolf square. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-089. Photo: Folke Sörvik.

FIGURE 90

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, view of courtroom E, facing the churchyard between Köpmansgatan and the Kristine Church. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1985-109-093) Photo: Guldbrandsen.

FIGURE 91

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, courtroom light fixture. Photo: author.

FIGURE 92

Elsa Gullberg, the original paragraph rug. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1989-12-056.

FIGURE 93

Elsa Gullberg, narrative, or signature, rug-tapestry. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1989-12-054.

FIGURE 94

Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, Woodland Cemetery, view across the entry. Collection Centre canadien d’architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, PH1988:0137. Photo: Carl Gustaf Rosenberg.

FIGURE 95

Gunnar Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, entry hall, with scenes from Homer’s Iliad and the Adam and Eve door. Collection Centre canadien d’architecture / Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, PH1988-0058. Photo: Carl Gustaf Rosenberg.

FIGURE 96

Glass water fountain on the second floor. Photo: author.

FIGURE 97

Nicodemus Tessin and Gunnar Asplund, Gothenburg Courthouse and extension, section east-west through the courtyard. Drawing by Giovanni de Flego, Trieste.

FIGURE 98

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, staircase, detail of the risers and treads. Photo: author.

FIGURE 99

Gunnar Asplund, Walking, then and now. From Asplund et al., acceptera (Stockholm: Tiden, 1931).

FIGURE 100

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, second floor, at the top of the stairs from the ground floor, looking right. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1966-104-164.

FIGURE 101

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, second floor, view to the Kristine Church at the top of the stairs from the ground floor. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1988-104-0158. Photo: Stig Sjöstedt.

FIGURE 102

Gunnar Asplund, courthouse extension, drawing of 1925 with the hidden figure of Justice, detail. Statens centrum för arkitektur och design, Stockholm, ARKM 1990-041-145.

FIGURE 103

New Fears, a cartoon that captures onlookers studying the new courthouse building. From Göteborgs-tidningen, 27 October 1936, p. 2.

FIGURE 104

Cartoon showing Asplund as a criminal. From Göteborgs-tidningen, 20 November 1936, p. 1.

FIGURE 105

Above: the upside-down façade, with the cellar apertures near the roof.... From Göteborgs morgonpost, 1 April 1937, p. 1.

FIGURE 106

In the Spirit of Self-Sacrifice. Professor Asplund will not change the courthouse façade. From Göteborgs-tidningen, 18 March 1937, p. 1.

FIGURE 107

View across Djugårdsviken to the Stockholm Exhibition, summer 1930. Franz Svanström.

FIGURE 108

Håkon and Inga-Lena meet their first funkis villa. From Balders Hage, Social-demokraten, 8 January 1931, p. 6.

FIGURE 109

Bengt Romare and Georg Scherman, Swedish History Museum, Stockholm, 1935–40. Axel Eliassons konstförlag AB, Stockholm.

FIGURE 110

Carl-Axel Stoltz, Malmö Art Museum, 1931–36, Borggården.

FIGURE 111

Gunnar Asplund, 1434–1934, entry for the Malmö Art Museum competition, 1931, plan, original drawing lost. From Gustav Holmdahl, Sven Ivar Lind, and Kjell Ödeen, eds., Gunnar Asplund arkitekt 1885–1940 (Stockholm: Tidskriften Byggmästaren, 1943), 63. Courtesy Arkitektur förlag, Stockholm.

FIGURE 112

Harald Ericson, Otterhällan, Gothenburg, 1927–29. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 113

F. O. Petersson & Sons, Skeppsbrohuset, Gothenburg, 1935. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 114

R. O. Swensson, Göteborgs-posten Building (G.P.-huset), Gothenburg, 1933–35. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 115

Ove Gormsen, Ströms Clothing Store, Gothenburg, 1935. Ströms, Gothenburg.

FIGURE 116

Nils Einar Eriksson, Thule Building, Gothenburg, 1937. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 117

View down the east side of Kungsportsavenyn, Gothenburg, looking south, ca. 1900. Joh. Ol. Andreen, Gothenburg.

FIGURE 118

View to the north from the Gothenburg Art Museum down Avenyn. A. B. Percy Rippe.

FIGURE 119

Nils Olsson, 29 Avenyn, Gothenburg, 1934. Photo: author.

FIGURE 120

Nils Einar Eriksson, Gothenburg Concert Hall, 1935. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 121

Sven Markelius, Helsingborg Concert Hall, 1934. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 122

Nils Einar Eriksson, Gothenburg Concert Hall, 1935, main hall. From Göteborgs konserthus: Berättelse avgiven av Stadsfullmäktiges byggnadskommitté för konserthuset vid invigningen den 4 okt. 1935 (Gothenburg: Medén, 1935). Photo: Folke D. Sörvik.

FIGURE 123

Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller, Aarhus City Hall, competition entry, 1937. From Erik Møller, Jens Lindhe, and Kjeld Vindum, Aarhus City Hall (Copenhagen: Danish Architectural Press, 1991), 8. Courtesy of Jørn Møller and Arkitektens forlag, Copenhagen.

FIGURE 124

Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller, Aarhus City Hall, 1939. Aarhus stiftstidende.

FIGURE 125

Erik Friberger, Kungsbacka Town Hall, 1933–35, view from the train station. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 126

Erik and Tore Ahlsén, Kristianstad Courthouse and extension, 1935–37, as seen from Stora torget. Photo: author.

FIGURE 127

Yngve Ahlbom and Nils Stirner, Halmstad Town Hall, 1936–38, and the Appeltofft Building, as seen from Stora torget. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 128

Cyrillus Johansson, Ludvika Town Hall, 1935–37, view from the end of Storgatan. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 129

Gunnar Leche, proposal for Uppsala Courthouse, 1938. Byggnadsnämndens arkiv, Uppsala stadsarkiv.

FIGURE 130

Gunnar Leche, one-point-perspective rendering of the Uppsala Courthouse entry hall, and Gregor Paulsson, sketch of the entry hall as it would actually appear. From Upsala nya tidning, 14 June 1939.

FIGURE 131

Gunnar Weijke and Kjell Ödeen, Malmö Courthouse, proposal, 1938. Stadsfullmäktige i Malmö / Malmö City Archive.

FIGURE 132

Sune Lindström, Karlskoga Town Hall and Hotel. Arne Wahlberg, ARKM 1962-101-0348.

FIGURE 133

André Lurçat, Villejuif School, and Le Corbusier, Pavillon Suisse, Paris, as presented in Max Raphael’s article in Byggmästaren, no. 8 (1935): p. 48. Courtesy Arkitektur förlag, Stockholm.

FIGURE 134

A. Aubert, D. Dastugue, J-C. Dondel, and P. Viard, Musée d’art moderne, Paris, 1937. SAP, 12 rue Henner, Paris.

FIGURE 135

Percy Thomas, Swansea Guildhall, 1930–34, elevation. West Glamorgan Archive Service.

FIGURE 136

Reginald Uren, Hornsey Town Hall, 1933–35. Hornsey Historical Society Archive, London.

FIGURE 137

Culpin & Son, Greenwich Town Hall, 1935–39. Greenwich Heritage Center.

FIGURE 138

Robert Atkinson, Charles Holloway James, and Stephen Rowland Pierce, Norwich City Hall, 1935–38. Valentine’s postcard.

FIGURE 139

E. Berry Webber, Southampton Guildhall and Civic Centre, 1930–39.

FIGURE 140

Émile Dubuisson, Lille Hôtel de Ville, 1924–32. Éditions La Cicogne, Reims.

FIGURE 141

Jean-Baptiste Mathon, Joannès Chollet, and René Chaussat, Cachan Hôtel de Ville, 1933–35. From Jean Favier, Le nouvel hôtel de ville de Cachan, Construction moderne 51 (1936): 483. Photo: Albin Salaün, all rights reserved.

FIGURE 142

Jean and Édouard Niermans, Puteaux Hôtel de Ville, 1930–34. Éditions d’art J. Poly, 19 rue de Chante-Coq, Puteaux.

FIGURE 143

Pierre Mathé and Henri Calsat, Poissy Hôtel de Ville, 1935–37. Éditions d’art Guy, Lyna-Paris Nozais Abeille-cartes, Paris.

FIGURE 144

Robert Giroud, Villeurbanne Hôtel de Ville, 1930–34. Imp. B. Arnaud, Lyon-Paris.

FIGURE 145

E. Vincent Harris, Glamorgan County Hall, Cardiff, 1909–11.

FIGURE 146

E. Vincent Harris, Sheffield City Hall, 1919–32. Valentine’s postcard.

FIGURE 147

Nils Malmborg and Sven Ahlbom, Sundbyberg Town Hall, 1932. With permission of the Pressbyrån Museum, Stockholm.

FIGURE 148

Herman Leitenstorfer, Technisches Rathaus, Munich, 1915–28. Süddeutscher Kunstverlag, Munich.

FIGURE 149

Alvar Aalto, Säynätsalo Town Hall, 1949–52, passageway to the council chamber. Photo: author.

FIGURE 150

Saverio Muratori, Palazzo della Democrazia Cristiana, Rome, 1955–58, east façade. Giancarlo Cataldi.

FIGURE 151

Sven Markelius, Economic and Social Council interior, United Nations Secretariat Building, New York, 1951–52. Photo: United Nations.

FIGURE 152

Robert Venturi, I AM A MONUMENT. From Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), fig. 139. © 1977 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and used by permission of the MIT Press.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NO SCHOLARLY WORK is undertaken without funding, and I am grateful to the institutions that undertook to support my work, starting with the Swedish-Bicentennial Fund (2001), the Swedish Institute (2003), the National Endowment for the Humanities (2005), and the Graham Foundation (2008). Residence at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, enabled me to fill out the European context for Asplund’s building (2010), and my time as a Senior Mellon Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) in Washington, D.C. (2012), allowed me to bring this work to completion. I am grateful to Alexis Sornin, director of the Study Centre at the CCA, Elizabeth Cropper, dean at CASVA, and Therese O’Malley and Peter Lukehart, associate deans, for generous welcomes. Research support from the Vassar College Research Committee and from the college for the endowment of the chair I have held in honor of Mary Conover Mellon since 1993 has undergirded my work. A scholar who commits the crime of changing fields in midcareer is not an easy person to support, and I am deeply appreciative of the work of those who fruitlessly (and fruitfully) wrote letters of recommendation on my behalf.

I am grateful for generous help from Bengt-Åke Engström (president of the District Court of Gothenburg), Thomas Hall (Stockholm University), Gun Schönbeck, Helena Mattisson, Stefan Högberg (RSG), Anders Larsson (Gothenburg University Library), and Anders and Christina Stendhal (Gothenburg). Many others guided me through the more obscure parts of this study. Friends gave critical readings, answered difficult questions, and shared lunches and evening meals, and I am very pleased to add their names here: Anders Bergström (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm), Claes Caldenby (Chalmers Technical University, Gothenburg), Eva Eriksson (Stockholm), Brian Lukacher (Vassar College), Marc Treib (University of California, Berkeley), and Kerstin Wickman (Konstfack, Stockholm). Christian Ottesen, teacher, journalist, and author, introduced me to the beauty of the Swedish language, for which I remain grateful.

Johan Mårtelius (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) and Elisabeth Lillman (Stockholm), in addition to much wisdom, provided a home away from home and generously introduced me to their family. A special note of thanks is due Magnus Ringborg and Christina Lillman Ringborg.

Much of my work took place in Stockholm, at the Royal Library, and I am grateful for its ever-efficient staff. Eric De Groat, Ulla Elliasson, Susanna Janfalk, Jonas Malmdahl, and Torun Warne facilitated work at the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design (Stockholm), and Annika Tengstrand solved many last-minute problems there. I also used Asplund’s magnificent Stockholm City Library, the University Library of Gothenburg, and the Stockholm University Library. At home I frequented the New York Public Library, the finest general scholarly library in the world, the Yale University Library, and the Vassar College Library, where its art librarian, Thomas Hill, was a friend and resource. Vassar College’s Interlibrary Loan office proved equal to most tasks.

My work on Asplund began in 1999 as a result of an invitation from Kurt Forster, then director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, to curate an exhibition (never realized) comparing Asplund’s Courthouse extension and Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio, Como. I am grateful for that invitation and for the pleasure of working with him and with Nicholas Olsberg, Elisabetta Terragni, Måns-Holst Eckström, and Michael Landzelius in the exhibition’s preparation. I am especially grateful to Howard Shubert, my former student, with whom I examined all of the Asplund drawings for the first time. His many insights into modern drawing and his understanding of the nature of the architectural exhibition made the experience of study an enormous pleasure. If the text reveals unacknowledged insights that he provided, I apologize in advance.

Selections from this book have been delivered as lectures over the years (at Wesleyan University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Princeton University, the Society of Architectural Historians annual meeting, the University of Rome Faculty of Engineering at Tor Vergata, the Istituto universitario di architettura Venezia, the Facoltà di architettura civile at the Politecnico di Milano, and New York University as the Walter S. Cook Memorial Lecture), and I am grateful for comments from many people at these locations, especially Marco Biraghi, Claudia Conforti, Richard Etlin, Alberto Ferlenga, Francesco Paolo Fiore, David Friedman, Faisal Hassan, Réjean Legault, Marzia Marandolo, Tod Marder, Cammie McAtee, Luca Ortelli, Sergio Poretti, Joseph Siry, and Marvin Trachtenberg. Additionally, others have fielded my many questions or provided stimulating questions of their own: Guido Beltramini, Eve Blau, Paul Byard, Johan Celsing, Lucy Creagh, Kenneth Frampton, Therese O’Malley, Peter Papademetriou, John Pinto, Peter Reed, and Lukasz Stanek. Kevin Stevens (Fordham University) helped with the preparation of the manuscript. Giovanni de Flego (Trieste) prepared the superb line drawings of Asplund’s building. Blueprints were a generous gift of the Stadsbyggnadskontor, Gothenburg. At Vassar College, Amy Bocko worked miracles on the images, and Liliana Aguis helped in matters organizational. Nicole Griggs (Columbia University) provided research eyes on the French newspaper files. Susanne Fusso (Wesleyan University) translated Russian to English. Most important, Ellie Goodman (Penn State Press) was a loyal and sharp-eyed editor; her assistant, Charlee Redman, answered my many questions instantly and cheerfully; Keith Monley read the manuscript with an eagle eye and sympathetic understanding: no author was ever better served. All remaining errors and infelicities are my own.

Publication has been aided by the Birgitta and Peter Celsing stiftelse (Stockholm), for which I am very grateful. During a number of memorable visits, Birgitta Celsing generously introduced me to many aspects of Swedish architecture. I am also grateful to Kicki Johansson, who enabled the book to receive a special grant from HIGAB (Gothenburg), the management corporation currently restoring Asplund’s building. She met my every request for visits to the site with patience and good humor. The Vassar College Research Committee also contributed significantly to this publication, and I am grateful to them.

My own extended family provided encouragement: Robin Adams and Julie Gedalicia, Will and Jonathan Self. Alexis Self (London) helped with research in the British newspapers. Jack Self (London) provided the outline map of central Gothenburg. At home, my wife, Laurie Nussdorfer, contributed a historian’s insight into the problems of this complex story, helping me simplify and focus and providing emotional and spiritual support. A book is insufficient oblation.

Finally, in writing this book and thinking of my own discovery of Sweden, I wish to remember my Swedish grandmother, Elisabeth von Saltza (1884–1978). She told me stories about her childhood in the old country, about Mem and Lilla Mem, the houses in which she lived as a child, about her father, the painter Carl Frederick von Saltza (1858–1905), and her mother, Henrietta Stoopendahl (1863–1905). It seemed like another world then; it seems a little closer now.

ABBREVIATIONS

Archives, Museums, Libraries

Newspapers and Government Documents

Newspapers that I have consulted directly are given page references. Where I have consulted a clipping file or cited a quotation at second hand, this precision has not been possible.

A NOTE ON TRANSLATION

USE OF PROPER nouns in Swedish poses some problems for the translator. A place name, such as the main square of a town, may be called Stora torg or Stora torget, the latter to mean the main square. (Whether to call it one or the other is a local decision.) Regardless of meaning, I have at times employed the definite Swedish-suffix form with proper nouns, adding as well the definite article in English before such a noun. This should present no problems to the English reader and will, I hope, only slightly irritate Swedish readers. This alternative seems preferable to translating Swedish place names into English and creating hybrid places that cannot be found on any map. I have also respected the (somewhat confusing) distinction between forms of the name of King Gustav Adolf II. Gustav Adolf refers to the king’s person or the king’s statue; the main square in Gothenburg, however, though named for the same person, is written Gustaf Adolf square. Names of newspapers and institutions have been left in their original Swedish and abbreviated in secondary references. The original text is supplied where issues of interpretation are considered critical or where the citation exists only in manuscript and is not publicly available. Otherwise, the original language has been eliminated. Many friends helped with the translations, and to them I am grateful. Alexandra Antoni (Stockholm) checked all my translations and controlled my original transcriptions from Swedish. Translations from Swedish, Danish, French, German, and Italian are my own unless acknowledged in the notes. Translations from Dutch have been made from Italian editions of the original Dutch.

Introduction: Public Architecture in the Modern World

Houses, houses, houses, wrote the Italian architect Marcello Piacentini in 1931, few public monumental town halls—in some countries none at all." ¹ He was not the only one troubled about the state of public architecture. A few years later, Charles Reilly, the English architect and Liverpool University professor, identified something he called the town hall problem. ² Though they fretted about different things, the dilemma they voiced about public architecture had percolated through the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1912 Reilly had already observed that any success achieved in architecture over the previous fifty years had been in the area of domestic and ecclesiastical architecture: [W]e have very obviously failed in our public buildings. ³ With the beginnings of modern architecture, failure turned to crisis. Would clients and architects hold on to classical and Gothic forms and traditional building typologies to represent sovereignty and rule? Or would they support the new, progressive, forward-looking vision? Of course, compromises could always be sought and in many cases were found, but the relationship had to be negotiated each time, within each country, province, city, town, and village. Architectural tastes and trends might move like the jet stream across regional and national boundaries, but decisions about public architecture were made by parliamentarians, mayors, town councilors, and judges: men and women wielding considerable local power but with relatively little knowledge of, or even particular aptitude for, architecture. Thus, while we can recognize from afar the progressive adoption of modern styles of architecture in the public sphere, close up the record appears much less even, as clients and architects struggled over their priorities: tradition or modernity, nationalism or cosmopolitanism, place or time, memory or prophecy. And in what proportion? Disputes were all too common. Complaints about the obtuseness of those in power and the dampening blanket of bureaucracy run through the records. As the architect Albert Laprade told an audience in 1935, In France, if you work for the state or a public institution, you face innumerable review committees, juries, or public opinion, itself influenced by a thousand contingencies. ⁴ No surprise then that the bumpy development of public architecture in the twentieth century sometimes seems to be out of touch with the wider world of architectural fashion. No surprise either that the comparatively linear development of housing, for example, is so much more attractive to historians than the rocky road of public building.

The key issue for clients and their architects in this period was finding an appropriate form of monumentality. Monumentality was a venerable architectural quality—the weightiest, in a sense. It created what an admirer of Nietzsche might disdain as the illusion of permanence, but it granted to those who believed in its virtues an identity that seemed without the limits of time. Among its most attentive students had been the early art historian, Alois Riegl.⁵ The term derived from the idea of a monument, a lasting memorial or a building that spoke to the long-term values of society. It came into common use in the early nineteenth century as historians sought to distinguish the achievements of primitive peoples from the durable achievements of the classical world. Monumentality embodied civilization and its intellectual and spiritual values. John Ruskin evoked its qualities in The Lamp of Power, one of the chapters in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (first edition, 1849), when he referred to that mysterious majesty, which we remember with an undiminished awe.⁶ Temples, churches, tombs, and palaces had been the signal monuments of societies, easily recognized by their well-known typology. Scale and fine materials played important roles here—and in classicizing contexts, symmetry too. In his fictional dialogue Eupalinos (1921), Paul Valéry, in the person of Phaedra, describes the awesome power required for the architecture of the courthouse, eloquently evoking the necessity of monumentality:

But the habitations of justice should speak to the eye of the rigour and equity of our laws. Majesty befits them, masses completely bare; and an awe-inspiring amplitude of wall. The silences of those bleak surfaces are scarce broken, at far intervals, by the threat of a mysterious door, or by the dismal outline of thick iron bars against the gloom of the narrow window they guard. All here pronounces sentence—everything is eloquent of penalties. The stone gravely declares that which it shuts in; the wall is implacable, and this work of stone, conforming so closely to the truth, strongly proclaims its stern purpose.⁷

Monuments like these imprinted themselves on the memory. But modern or traditional?

It would seem that adherence to the values of monumentality in public architecture required nothing more than historic style at a grand scale. Yet government itself was not immune to change as new towns, new constitutions, new laws, new voters, and new social classes entered the public realm. They required new policies and programs and demanded new forms of expression in their architecture. While governments and their rulers wanted to see themselves as the inheritors of national, regional, urban, or judicial traditions, they also wanted to leave their mark, showing the distinctiveness of their contribution in their time. But how to do that? Monumentality, as Elizabeth Mock, then director of the Department of Architecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art observed in 1944, was a shifty term.⁸ Even a traditionalist like Reilly wanted to leave something new and distinctive; the modern world had to be built.⁹ After visiting the United States, he championed Beaux-Arts architects such as McKim, Mead & White. I am back from America with a new scale of life, he announced in 1912.¹⁰ What Reilly called the monumental classic created a universal language of urban form, familiar enough... to be culturally accessible, and so to become monumental in appearance.¹¹ The key to Reilly’s monumentality was traditional forms over modern structure. Others’ monumentality required a more thoroughgoing modernization. In Sweden, the historian, critic, and cultural entrepreneur Gregor Paulsson, echoing positions of the Werkbund (an association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists), redefined monumentality in his book on the new architecture (1916): in the new monumentality, as he called it, but monumentality nonetheless, historical ornament was suppressed and function revealed.¹² Though there were many other stylistic avenues away from the conventional historicism of the nineteenth century, the Werkbund was a well-traveled route toward modernity for architects from northern Europe and a significant resting place for those wanting to make a modern public architecture.

Even so, by the teens, under the impact of modernism, old (and new) monumentality had earned opponents for whom there was no reconciliation. "I oppose and despise... [a]ll classical, solemn, hieratic, theatrical, decorative, monumental, frivolous, pleasing architecture," wrote the Futurists Antonio Sant’Elia and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1914.¹³ In their entry for the League of Nations competition in 1927, Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer presented a functionalist structure that rejected the old-fashioned pillared reception halls for weary monarchs... [and] brick corridors for backstairs diplomacy, offering instead hygienic workrooms for the busy representatives of the people... [and]... open glazed rooms for public negotiations of honest men.¹⁴ As Lewis Mumford argued in The Death of the Monument, an essay published a decade later, the monumental, even in its modernized form, only memorialized the rich and the powerful, dead civilizations and dead cultures.... The very notion of a modern monument is a contradiction in terms: if it is a monument it cannot be modern and if it is modern it cannot be a monument.¹⁵ And new pressure came to bear with the rise of Fascism, National Socialism, and changes in Russian architectural policy in the 1930s. Statist monumentality now poisoned the historicists’ well elsewhere in Europe. Peter Meyer, editor of the Swiss magazine Das Werk and a fierce critic of the statist monumentality in Italy and Germany, faced sharp criticism when he suggested that the use of classicism for monumental buildings was inevitable.¹⁶

There is no shortcut through this shifty topic. At any one time, it seems, all of monumentality’s historicizing options are open. Take the situation in France between 1933 and 1936. One can find public buildings that employ relatively conventional early twentieth-century classicism (the annex to the Palais de Justice, Marseilles), moderne classicism (the annex to the mairie of the XIV arrondissement, Paris), Dutch-influenced modern architecture (the hôtel de ville, Cachan), and factory-influenced functionalism in a restrained classical guise (the hôtel de ville, Boulogne-Billancourt). In Denmark, the town of Gentofte, a suburb of Copenhagen, hired the court architect Thorvald Jørgensen to build its neoclassical city hall (1934–36), whereas in Aarhus, on Jutland, a competition for a new city hall was won by the