Landscape and Architecture The Work of Erik Gunnar Asplund

Landscape and Architecture: The Work of Erik Gunnar Asplund
Author(s): Stuart Wrede

Source: Perspecta , 1983, Vol. 20 (1983), pp. 195-214
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
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Stuart
StuartWrede Wrede 195
195
Landscap
the Work
E. G. Asplund with Sigurd

Lewerentz, Woodland
Cemetery, 1935-40,
Crematorium and landscape
from cemetery entrance.
Perspecta: The Yale ArchitecturalJournal, Volume 20 0079-0958/83/20195-020$3.00/0

? 1983 by Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, Inc., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog

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Stuart
196
Landscape was not on the agenda of the ments in the landscape, both in un-
Modern Movement, except as a sanitary touched nature and in urban settings,
or recreational concern, as a greenbelt or
preoccupied him throughout his career.
"tapis verte." The aesthetic and symbolicFor Asplund, landscape does not assume
dimension, which had traditionally been athe passive or secondary role it does else-
central concern of garden and landscape where in the Modern Movement, and
design, was essentially discarded by the rather than make a revolutionary break
Modern Movement in favor of utilitarian with the past, Asplund sought to renew
concerns. This largely accounts for the and revitalize landscape traditions.
Asplund's landscape sensibility received
fact that landscape architecture in modern
times has found itself in a subordinate its first major challenge with the competi-
position to architecture and that a vitaltion for the Woodland Cemetery that he
modern garden or landscape tradition can did together with Sigurd Lewerentz in
hardly be said to exist. The few good ex-1915. Though that project was to be his
amples in existence, the work of Barragan(and Lewerentz's) central landscape
or Burle Marx, are in fact the exceptionsachievement, and was to preoccupy him
that prove the rule. over his entire career, his landscape abil-
ities manifested themselves elsewhere in
In the work of both Le Corbusier and Mies subtly brilliant ways as in the designs for
van der Rohe, attention to landscape de- the parks surrounding the public library,
sign remains most often schematic, the siting of his summer house, and the
though Le Corbusier shows a classicist's plan for the paving of Gustaf Adolf's
concern and sensitivity to the siting of his square in Gothenburg.
buildings in the macrolandscape. While
early Mies integrated house with land- While looking at each of the projects sep-
scape via walls extending out into nature arately, and giving a brief background to
as well as by the use of extensive areas of their development, this paper will discuss
glass, late Mies used plantings and trees Asplund's concern with nature and land-
as a subordinate system for extending the scape at three levels: his concern with the
all pervasive grid-like order created by his design of the larger landscape and park,
buildings. Frank Lloyd Wright, drawing on as evidenced in his work at the Woodland
English picturesque and Japanese tra- Cemetery and the public library parks; his
ditions of sensitivity to the melding of concern with the integration of building
building and landscape, has perhaps been and landscape which, of course, is not al-
the chief modernist model for integrating together inseparable from the first con-
architecture with the natural landscape. cern; and finally, as a separate section at
But Wright's, Le Corbusier's and the Mod- the end, his concern with the subsidiary
ern Movement's bias in general was for architectural elements of landscape.
the natural landscape. Underlying this i.u- a l
bias was the Modern Movement's urge to

discard history and begin at the begin-
ning. The traditional garden and park
were seen as artificial, products of an ob-
solete culture which was no longer rele-
vant to the needs of a utilitarian era. The
rare design by Le Corbusier or Mies that
can be seen as anything near a prototypi-
cal modern garden-the Beistegui roof ter-
race, or the courtyards of the Barcelona
Pavilion-have been internalized in the
building, and in a sense privatized. Or, as
in the case of the roof playground of the
Unite d'Habitation, they have been given
an apparent utilitarian purpose.
Of the major twentieth century architects

who were part of the Modern Movement,
Erik Gunnar Asplund offers us some pro-
found lessons in landscape architecture,
and in the relating of buildings and land-
scape. The design of the landscape, the
integration of building and land, and the
design of particular architectonic ele-

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Stuart
197
Woodland Cemetery It is the evocation of raw Nordic wilder-

ness that constitutes a radical departure
Asplund's approach to landscape and the in landscape architecture, not to speak of
relation of building and landscape is best cemetery layout at this time. Asplund and
exemplified in the extensive work with Lewerentz's sources were not high archi-
the design of the Woodland Cemetery tecture or landscape planning, but rather
that for over twenty-five years he and medieval and ancient Nordic vernacular
Sigurd Lewerentz carried out, as well as burial archetypes. Freely mixed in were
in the two individual buildings, the chapel elements from the Mediterranean and an-
and the crematorium he designed by tiquity whose effects are again height-
himself for the grounds. Asplund and ened by becoming isolated elements in
Lewerentz's competition entry, which was the Nordic forest.
chosen over fifty-five other entries, clearly
stands out in its intense romantic natural- But in terms of its organization, Asplund
ism. The winning scheme was the onlyand Lewerentz's scheme clearly grew out
one that turned the existing, essentially of the English romantic garden tradition,
untouched Nordic forest on the site into which in fact had flourished in Sweden
the dominant experience. While civilized since the days of Frederik Magnus Piper,
and well-groomed English parks mixed the designer of both the English gardens
1 with allees on axis, and informal and for- at Drottningholm and at Haga.' The inter-
See Frederik Magnus Piper and the Landscape mal open areas were features typical ofest in ancient Nordic burial archetypes
Garden, Exhibition Catalog, (Stockholm: The Royal
the other competitors, Asplund and also had precedents. Erik Dahlberg's
Academy of Fine Arts, 1981).
Lewerentz evoked a much more primitive monumental Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna
imagery. The intervention of footpaths, compiled at the end of the seventeenth
which meandered freely through the for- century featured etchings of many of the
est, was minimal. Graves were freely and most spectacular ancient burial and ritual
informally to be laid among the existing sites of the country. The runic hill in the
wild forest. The interventions they al- gardens of Rosersberg, probably con-
lowed themselves, such as the moulding ceived by Olof Rudback, Professor of Bot-
of the two old gravel pits and the ordering any at Upsala, for Axel Oxienstierna dates
2 of the area surrounding the main chapel, from the mid-seventeenth century.2 Piper
It thus antedates the Druids cell at Stourhead by 100 became all the more charged because himself was to evoke similar primitive im-
years, which itself presages one of the distinct motifs
they existed hidden within and in contrast agery in his monument hill at Drottning-
of the Romantic garden landscape.
to the raw and untouched forest sur- holm. But the runic hill at Rosersberg
rounding them. This contrast is well cap- existed at the periphery of a formal
tured in their as yet quite romantic French garden, while monument hill was
competition sketches. placed in the well-groomed and most civi-
1
Competition entry, Woodland
Cemetery, 1915 site plan.
2
Cemetery, sketch plan showing
layout of graves.

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Stuart
StuartWrede Wrede 198 198
.. l , -.. .-_ . _
3
Burial mound at Inhinge in
Smaland, from Dahlberg's,
Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna.
* -*--: - - S_.. 4
Frederick Magnus Piper,
Monument Hill at
Drottningholm.
lized English garden at Drottningholm. In culture and returned to Sweden to re-

3
each case the primitive landscape ele- discover their native land.3 Rather than
The return to the land and the interest in more ment had been isolated and removed being concerned with realistic detail, a
primitive cultures was widespread as witnessed for
instance by Gauguin's move to Tahiti. For an excellent
from its original context and placed in characteristic
an of their Parisian schooling,
discussion of the Scandinavian aspect of this artificial one and thus, in a sense, tamed. they sought to capture the mood of the
movement, see Northern Light, Realism and In being out of character with the larger landscape, and like Heidenstam, its emo-
Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting, 1880-1910, the surrounding context, it lost some of its tional content. As such, their work, along
catalog of an exhibition of the same title held at the
aura and tended to become a mere with their Nordic contemporary, Edvard
Corcoran Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum in the fall
of 1982. curiosity. Munch,4 may be seen as a revitalization of
the northern romantic tradition in paint-
4
Thus it is the shift to a more Nordic, more ing which had an important source in
For an excellent discussion of the Northern Romantic
primitive and untamed context that the work of Caspar David Friedrich
tradition in painting, see Robert Rosenblum, Modern
Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, (New
makes Asplund and Lewerentz's scheme (1774-1840), the German romantic
York: Harper and Row, 1975). new, and the fact that the landscape was a painter and contemporary of Goethe and
cemetery and not a royal pleasure park Schinkel. Born in Griefwald on the Bal-
lent it authenticity. The architects found a tic coast (in his youth still Swedish
receptive audience in the jury, whose key Pomerania) and educated as an artist in
members were Ragnar Ostberg and Lars Copenhagen, Friedrich had close Scan-
Israel Wahlman, two of Sweden's leading dinavian connections. Through his friend-
national romantic architects. The interest ship with J. C. Dahl and others, Friedrich
in the raw Nordic landscape, while a newwas to be an important influence on his
phenomenon in landscape architecture Scandinavian contemporaries. While
and relatively new among architects, wasFriedrich was not rediscovered in Ger-
widespread in the national romantic cul- many until 1906, he was apparently re-
ture of Sweden from the 1890s onward. discovered for Scandinavian artists much
The writings and poetry of Verner von earlier through the writings of the Nor-
Heidenstam celebrate the Nordic land- wegian art critic and historian, Andreas
scape as well as the primitive vernacular Aubert, who discussed Friedrich exten-
building culture that was an integral partsively in two articles on J. C. Dahl in 1893
of it. Heidenstam, who saw the intimate and 1894. Thus such Swedish painters as
and inseparable connection between Prince Eugen and Karl Nordstrom possi-
building and landscape, also spoke of the bly drew direct inspiration from Friedrich,
soul of, and the emotional content of, resorting to a kind of repetition differente
landscapes and buildings. These concepts of the same themes that had animated
were to be central to the idea of the the culture almost a century earlier.
cemetery.
Friedrich brought into conscious usage
Among artists the Nordic landscape be-for the first time in painting certain arche-
came the focus of interest for a group oftypal Nordic landscape images: the deep
painters, contemporaries of Heidenstam evergreen forest with graves set in the
who, having absorbed the realistic tech- wilderness, the church with surrounding
niques of pleinaire painting in Paris, re- churchyard, and the dolmen and earth
acted against the city's cosmopolitan mound on the heath surrounded by oaks

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Stuart
199
and the Friedrich's work as well as the best work

wayfarer's cr
being naturalistic
of Prince Eugen. However, their scheme doc
would evolve.
Friedrich's landscapes
concentrated imager
tary symmetrical While the scheme draws on Pompeii's Via
com
transcendental and symbolic dimensions. Sepulchra and other elements from antiq-
uity, it is the primitive Nordic landscape
In the images evoked, the wayfarer's and archaic Nordic burial archetypes that
cross, graves and chapels in the wild dominate. Thus Asplund and Lewerentz's
overgrown forest, and in the associations scheme also stands in contrast to a popu-
to an earlier and more primitive age of lar motif in continental European ceme-
faith, Asplund and Lewerentz's competi- tery design at the turn of the century
tion scheme was close to Friedrich, yet which drew inspiration from the symbol-
still perhaps overly romantic, lacking the ist paintings of Arnold Bocklin, especially
concentration of imagery and paring his famous "Island of the Dead." Bocklin's
down to essentials that characterizes landscapes, with their classical fragments
5
Cemetery, perspective of "The
Way of the Cross".
6
Caspar David Friedrich, "The
Cross on the Baltic", 1815.
s- . A..

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Stuart Wrede 200
'""CT" "s ??' 1

c
i;r. '1 Y .i:.? .*
;92
"I
c? P'*srC:
a _iil
L. : r ??
J,F.
? i.ry' ' ?
34., * .
"' ?:
~~~~~~~--'
?' it':.. ' 0 ..--

> : ~' /
_~
8
iC
rJ?
10
7
8 Competition entry, Woodland
Caspar David Friedrich, "Old Cemetery, above: "The Three
Heroes' Graves", 1812. Mounds", below: dell at south
entrance.
9
10 Competition entry, Woodland
Caspar David Friedrich, "Early Cemetery, path and road
Snow", 1828. profiles.

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Stuart
201
and their in the Helsingborg proposal is the han- fig

enigmatic
of decadence and an undertone of the dling of the stream passing through the
sinister. That the jury preferred the north-site, which by being directed through a
ern romantic scheme of Asplund and vault under the chapel evokes the Crema-
Lewerentz to one pursuing Bocklinesque tion Movement's coupling of death and
motifs, is probably a good indication rebirth. On one side the stream flowing
of the different stage in cultural time into the vault recalls the river flowing to
Scandinavia found itself vis-a-vis the rest Hades, the mythological realm of the
of Europe. dead; on the other side, emerging out of
the vault and breaking into a cascading
It must be stressed that Lewerentz's con- waterfall, the stream evokes rebirth
tribution to the scheme was no doubt as and life.
11 important as Asplund's, though it is im-
Arnold Bocklin, "Island of the
Dead", 1880.
possible to say who was responsible for
what. We do know that Lewerentz and
The Woodland Chapel
Torsten Stubelius's proposed crema-
torium for Helsingborg served as the The Woodland Chapel, designed and built
model for the chapel. And a study of thein the years 1918-20, represents both an
Helsingborg proposal shows Lewerentz intensification
to and a formal disciplining of
be a consummate landscape artist withthe a romantic naturalism of the competi-
similar delicate touch that is discernible in tion scheme. The increasing severity and
the cemetery competition entry. Brilliant discipline reflect Asplund's developing in-
12
#;.
It
~' A. " .4f

12
Sigurd Lewerentz and
Torsten Stubbelius, Project for
k .. a Crematorium in Helsingborg.
13
1. I .4
Caspar David Friedrich, "Cross

b. II glkIAL"&. in the Mountains", 1813.

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Stuart
202
* "?;
-* ?-
?b
* *;i??
C .')" C
14
E. G. Asplund, Woodland
Chapel, 1918-20, front.
:-. ~ - .::, :..;
:?i~~d,~ t*-s . ._.. . . ~.~,.. ,. ..

i:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i
r?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
k , : ? ..
..2-
;-~ ~. ,-- , 2'":.. .'..-
. ..~ " .t?:c~~: ; 4.. ,.... *'
~~~~?-~~~~~~. *
? .,.
16
,r = i~~~~~~~~~~~t~~~-~~
Woodland Chapel, view of
earth vault.

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Stuart
203
terest in classicism and classical composi- walls of the octagonal chapel and the
tion methods. But the point of departure steep black wooden roof pulled in behind
for the chapel, which is set in a grove of the roof line, complement the earth
mature fir trees surrounded by a wall, is mounds in their archaic primitiveness.
an indigenous vernacular landscape/ The driveway, which takes one around the
building type, the country church sur- complex, provides a series of varied jux-
rounded by a walled graveyard over- tapositions of mounds and chapel.
grown with fir trees. Thus, while the plan
and major elements are classical, Asplund
retains important roots in the vernacular.
The Evolution of the Cemetery Landscape
Building and surrounding landscape are
Initially, Asplund and Lewerentz had
conceived as an integral whole. One can-
planned to collaborate on the design of
not separate the chapel from the carefully
chosen setting, or it would lose much ofthe crematorium, but when the time came
its meaning and resonance. Memory of to prepare the final designs, the building
an archetype and its emotional resonance committee decided to give the job to
is of key importance here. But Asplund Asplund alone. However, if the cremato-
abstracts, transforms, and intensifies therium took shape from 1935 onward under
experience of the original. Not only doesAsplund's aegis alone, many of the crucial
the black shingle wooden roof evoke the decisions which contributed to its siting
vernacular country church, but by a subtle were made earlier and involved the joint
shift in its proportioning and by isolatingcontribution of both architects. The
it aloft on Tuscan columns, it becomes, moulding of the surrounding landscape at
seen frontally, a primitive wooden pyra- the front of the cemetery continued to be
mid levitated amid the fir trees. An exam- the responsibility of both architects and
ple of architecture mimicking nature, the had in fact nearly achieved its final form
pyramidal roof echoes the slope of the in a joint project of 1932.
tree branches while the columns echo the
trunks. The evolution of the form of the main
chapel and surrounding landscape seems
In front of the chapel is a vault sunken to parallel the stylistic development of
halfway into the ground and covered with Asplund and Lewerentz's architecture. In a
earth containing the caskets to be buried plan dating from 1922-23, the architects
that day. It strongly reinforces the death moved the chapel from its picturesque lo-
symbolism of the composition, an often cation on the crest of the ridge, as sug-
15 recurrent element in the traditional coun- gested in the competition scheme, and
Petajaveden church, Finland,
eighteenth century. try churchyard. But the earth vault also placed it on axis with the entrance in strict
reinforces the primitive quality of the de- classical fashion. This project was done in
sign. Both the earth vault and the chapel conjunction with Lewerentz's design for
represent basic archetypal human con- the neoclassical semicircular walled entry
5 structs. Contrasted to one another, they into the cemetery.5 The proposed chapel
The building seems to indicate Lewerentz's hand as it also represent a basic duality. The amor- was a classical temple form with a rather
has close affinities to the Resurrection Chapel then
phous organic earth shape of the mound innovative loggia passing through the
under construction at the cemetery. But if we
compare Lewerentz's entry scheme to Asplund's lies in contrast to the sharp Platonic ge- building. Like Lewerentz's Resurrection
Oxelosund Cemetery layout, we see the latter ometry of the pyramidal roof. The pyra- Chapel, the proposed chapel allowed itself
working along very similar lines at this time. mid floats aloft among the trees in considerable freedom with the temple
contrast to the rootedness in the earth of form.
the mound. Matter is contrasted to spirit,
and in the most elementary and abstract The final moulding of the landscape at the
way the Christian notion of the separation front of the cemetery and the final deci-
of body and soul at death is evoked. sion on the location of the main chapel,
were represented in another joint plan of
In the Skovde Crematorium project of 1932. The main chapel was moved off
1938 (finished after his death) Asplund axis to the eastern edge of the gently
6
develops an interesting variation on the sloping plateau beyond the cemetery en-
But the creation of a separate hillock out of the ridge
landscape scenario of the Woodland trance. The landscape, which had been
had its origin in the 1922-23 proposal when the
architects, citing reasons of circulation, were able to Chapel. The two chapels are similar in cleared of forest between the cemetery
cut a service road through the ridge. It was, however, terms of size and shape. But Skovde is entrance and the main chapel, was now
apparently not until the work on the road was in sited on open high ground evoking again further opened up to accommodate larger
progress that the architects realized its potential
a historic building/landscape prototype, expanses of lawn. It was in this proposal
as an open landscape. Until the plan of 1932, the hill
was to have been forested with graves placed among the small stone church on the open heath, that the famous grass covered knoll with
the trees. surrounded by burial mounds. The stone the meditation grove found its form.6

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Stuart
204
AkY
17
E. G. Asplund, Skovde
Crematorium, 1937-40,
side view.
?,
i
i jr r.
r
il??
//
_iC=-=
-,.s
''1
18
Woodland Cemetery, front
portion, plan and section, 1922.

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00
Stuart
205
The scheme of 1932 represents a move place: the open landscape, the meditation
from the classicism of the 1920s to a grove and the earth mound, the planted
more naturalistic asymmetrical layout birch forest at the top of the ridge and
with a modernist influence. But, though it even the road to the chapel. The main
may be seen as a move back to a more chapel shows two elements which would
picturesque direction, the overly romantic carry through to the final scheme, the
scheme of the competition was gone, open loggia in front of the chapel and the
modified by the severe and elementary low wall following the footpath leading
7
classical sensibility of the 1920s and the up the hill to the chapel.7
Not found in the gouache, but in the 1932 site plan. minimalist asymmetry of modernism. Yet
This wall had in fact been two walls in the 1922-23
the essence of the original scheme re- In 1935, Asplund began the final designs
scheme, but one wall was eliminated to open up the
view of the landscape facing the chapel. mained-a powerful emotional resonance for the building which was now to be a
evoked by the landscape which now once crematorium. The program called for one
again became the dominant focus of the large and two small chapels. Like the
scheme. Woodland Chapel, the crematorium sub-
ordinates itself to and is an integral part
A gouache by Asplund dating from 1932, of the landscape. But unlike the intimate
an aerial axonometric of the landscape forested site of the chapel, the landscape
around the still sketchily designed main
setting of the crematorium is open and
chapel, shows the key elements already has in
a monumental sweep. Visually tied to
19
Woodland Cemetery,
watercolor, front portion,
1932 plan.

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00
Stuart
206
the low wall that

the slope, the bu
of, and blends in
eastern edge of th
Seen from the
I
ent
strong rising dire
is terminated by t
great loggia at the
cross silhouetted
counterpoint to th
and becomes23
one o
the composition.
Caspar David Friedrich,
"Morning in the
Rosengebirge", 1810-11.
Balancing the crem
edge of position the has excluded all redundant
open ele- s
mound on
ments. As in Friedrich's
the "Morning in the sou
square Reisengebirge", we stand beforeof
grove a land- tr
second focal poin
scape of a profound religious intensity.
These focal Asplund and Lewerentz, workingpointfor over
and the twenty-five meditatio years, had perfected their
against composition.
the The lingering connection to
sky, e
ist surrounding the landscape painters of the 1890s is of
sloping also
up clear as are additional
from connections to t
the ridge Friedrich. carries t
The top of the fir
is barely While Friedrichian
visible. in its intensity when A
like front experienced fromfaqadethe oblique approach of
similarly the entrance, the building complex when
bifocal,
20 grass and the
seen in the landscape from the medi- sky
Woodland Cemetery, gouache,
chapel and landscape, 1932.
tableau upon which Asplund composes. tation grove, has a classic Poussinesque
repose with its layered planes. Thus,
For, upon entering the Woodland Ceme- from the initial powerful sense of the sub-
tery, we are in fact confronted with a cos- lime upon entering, the feeling changes
mic landscape of Friedrichian intensity to arcadian repose and tranquility as one
and power. The sparse elementary com- moves about the landscape.
21
The Woodland Cemetery, final
site plan of the front portion
of the cemetery with
crematorium, undated.

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00
Stuart Wrede 207
L? . . . . , 7; .
.
: *1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~m
:
.....t ......
_ . L S_F=vX~~~~~~~~~~*
? , ,,
.~,,~ . .._.m.~
~ C*C ;:','.;'. ~ ..;.~~
. '~~
-150* ~r- ?.... . ,
_|>wei--;l'~:"
3~,~ ~ ~ ~ ~ '~:-'."';.' ' "' ' ' '~',';~"'," :.w'
, , ?. .'..*~.E-~~?:
_W~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. 4Jr; ;eltsE
. ... .- ,. r . .. ? ^,. _ .
,, , ' ,..~';:, . I?.: :~ ~ c ?.. -
22
Woodland Crematorium,
1935-40, crematorium and
landscape from cemetery
entrance.

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00
Stuart Wrede 208
J?
is
??iis:
s,:t . r;;
;I? i:;
'...?? *
.. .."".
'.P;??;: '"
P? ?::?. a,
?':? .?
3" 'I '
it "' ????
?'i ?
,, ., . '
24 26 25
Karl Nordstrom, "Storm Caspar David Friedrich, "Hill Woodland Crematorium, great
Clouds", 1893. and Ploughed Field near cross with knoll and meditation
Dresden", 1824. grove in background.
29
Woodland Crematorium, view
from the loggia towards the
meditation grove on the knoll.

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00
Stuart
209
As at the Woodland Chapel, architecture Asplund projects, the sky becomes the
and nature borrow motifs from and mimic ceiling.
each other, as well as representing basic
dualities that take on symbolic overtones.
While the great earth mound in its archaic The forms of both natural and architec-
and amorphous shape contrasts with thetural elements take on symbolic mean-
planar geometry of the architecture, the ing. The great earth mound recalls the
strict square placement of the trees of the archetypal Nordic burial mound, but also
8 meditation grove on top of it echoes the evokes a great earthen breast;8 the dou-
It may be noted that the great Bronze Age burial shape of the loggia and the trunks of the ble symbolism appropriately echoing the
mounds in Denmark have, especially when they occur
trees its pillars. In contrast to the frontal Cremation Movement's coupling of death
in pairs, always been referred to by the local
population as the "maiden mounds." geometry of the building, the main chapel and rebirth. The main chapel, its organic
takes on a natural "organic" form adding shape suggesting both burial cave and
another natural dimension to the building womb, echoes the same symbolism.
which already represents a complex inter- While the meditation grove and the loggia
locking of architecture and nature via the echo each other, they also provide a two-
extensive set of courtyards. By jumpingway directional force between earth and
scale, we may see the three chapels of the sky, symbolically a kind of communication
building, fronting on the landscape as system. The trees of the grove reach up
they do, as side chapels to the main towards the sky while the loggia with its
"cathedral space" of the open landscape inverted roof and impluvium, receiving
itself. And in a reversal of an ancient met- the life-giving water from above, inflects
aphor developed in a number of other towards the ground.
28
drawing of front facade.
*g . *
30
ground floor plan and side
elevation.
27
Woodland Crematorium, the
great loggia and two small
chapels.

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00
Stuart
210
.. f o
.^-.
0 b S iD .........
?:_tlv .
@ y6Ei -~l?;~~ F~~?''
31 32
Woodland Cemetery, steps to Stabelhoj (Bronze Age burial
the meditation grove by mounds) at Agri on the island
Sigurd Lewerentz. of Mols, Denmark.
Formally the crematorium represents a anthropomorphic quality, the Woodland

head-tail organization with the static log- Crematorium most clearly indicates an-
gia acting as head, and the frontal walls other important feature of this organiza-
of the small chapels together with the tional device. For here the combination of
wall following the path constituting the tail and head, wall and loggia, may also
subordinate tail. As a compositional de- be seen as the combination of the ver-
vice, this is a repeated theme in Asplund's nacular (the wall) and the classical (the
work, from the winning competition loggia). Thus we may see Asplund as suc-
scheme where the Path of the Cross was cessfully combining two separate tradi-
the winding tail leading to the chapel, thetions, the classical and the vernacular, of
head, to the 1938 project for the Kviberg siting buildings in the landscape, a phe-
Crematorium, where the wall descends nomenon that parallels their integration
9 down the hill to fuse with the chapel.9 It is in his architecture. The buildings stand as
Unfortunately, when built, the wall went straight into also the underlying concept in the articu- a separate static element in the landscape
the hill rather than climbing up it as originally
lation and siting of Asplund's summer in the manner of the classical tradition
designed thus destroying an essential element of the
composition.
house, and in the 1926 scheme for while at the same time are moored to and
Odenhallen, where the Public Library integrated with the landscape via the wall,
in the manner of the vernacular tradition.
and Sales Hall form a clear head-tail orga-
nization. But, in addition to its semi-
34 33
Stennas, Gunnar Asplund's E. G. Asplund, Kviberg
summer cottage, Lison, Crematorium, Gothenburg,
Sorunda, exterior. 1936-40, project model.

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Stuart
StuartWrede Wrede 211 211
The block had changed from Odengatan to

Stockholm P
Sveavagen, which, because it connected
The Stockholm
to the center of the city, was the more
challenging important street. Asplund also abandoned
sitin
Set in the
the effort to ordermiddl
the slope of the hill
the library through terracing and instead not created a
the surrounding kind of walled acropolis at the top of the
buildings along
hill, leaving the rest in its natural state as
gatan, but
a had
complement to the otherwise formal t
tamed park layout.
hill adjace
the block. In con
design, Asplund
Two library related projects of 1926
master focused plan Asplund's mind on the forfinal
1922 was the most elaborate and ex- articulation of the site, one of which un-
ploited the block rather heavily. Asplund
fortunately did not get built as planned.
Whereas the first two schemes were still
turned the slope of the hill into an exten-
sive set of terraces to the north and east,
diagrammatic and contained redundant
elements,
with the terracing extending all the way to the 1926 schemes pared things
Odengatan. A year later Asplund pro- down to essentials and brought the ele-
duced a revised scheme for the block. A ments together into a unified whole. The
number of important changes occurred.two projects were the limited competition
Not only were a number of unspecified for the park adjacent to the library along
buildings left out, creating a much moreSveavagen, and the plan for a market hall,
park-like setting, but the focus of the Odenhallen, along Odengatan.
I 1D1
'(k,\ 0 -^ S-'V
35 36 37
35
E. G. Asplund, Stockholm
Public Library, 1922 site plan.
36
Stockholm Public Library, 1923
site plan.
37
composite plan showing
competition entry for park and
proposal for Odenhallen.
39
Odenhallen, 1926, perspective
drawing.
39

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Stuart
212
The park along Sveavagen is a study in head-tail theme, with the library as the
the richness of simple minimalist land-free-standing head, and the market hall as
scape design. The main element is a the tail anchoring the complex to its site.
large, shallow rectilinear pond along
Sveavagen on axis with the raised fore- Between the market hall and the steep
court of the library. When viewed diago- slope of the hill, Asplund created a park.
nally across the pond, the stark forms of Two rows of trees on either side made the
the library are mirrored in the pond. Inter- great cylinder of the library the focus of
secting one side of the pond and jutting the composition. While it was essentially
out into it there was originally to be a a straightforward park layout, the view to-
smaller square, defined by walls and wards the powerful and dominant library
evenly planted with a square grove of cylinder would have made of the park an
trees whose overhanging branches gave extraordinary visual experience.
it a distinctly soft appearance. The con-
trast of the soft grove of trees with the Tying these landscape compositions to-
stark hard forms of the library behind it as gether, the nexus and dominant element
seen in a watercolor by Asplund is beauti- of the scheme was the library itself, at the
ful and another indication of the basic du- corner of the two streets. Its base con-
alities that constantly underlie Asplund's formed to the rectilinear order of the
10
work. The amorphous shape of the hill street grid 0 defining the edge of the side-
In the actual building, the front of the base facing
contrasted to the sharp abstract geometry walk as well as reinforcing the everyday
Sveavagen was inflected, making it parallel to the
front of the library and providing a natural entrance of the library and the soft sunken space ofstreet activity by providing shops along
into the adjacent park. the pool contrasted to the hard upward the Sveavagen side. Only at the point
thrusting mass of the library represent where it confronts the corner of the steep
other such basic dualities. While they are hill does the base set back and make an
in a sense well known historical composi- inflection. This inflection becomes the ref-
tion devices, Asplund has succeeded in erence for the inflection of the library it-
imparting to them a new intensity. self, which is given a slight twist off the
rectilinear to further emphasize its impor-
At the top of the hill, a stream emerges tance. It is thus related to the observatory
out of a vaulted opening and flows down on the hill by being inflected off the grid
a chute, under the walk leading to the li- and by the placement of the library cylin-
brary, breaking into a cascade with steps der on axis with the observatory. One of
on either side. It flows into the center of the side walls of the Capitoline-like ramp
the little grove where it forms a square cutting through the base to the main en-
pool before flowing over a last cascade trance of the library is also inflected at the
and into the large pond. This rigorous but same angle as the building, thus acting as
rich landscape layout, evoking both the a mediating element between rectilinear
primal spring and the sacred grove, re- order and the inflected library, but also
mained the basis for the built project, butcreating a forced perspective as one ap-
both the stream and the square grove proaches the building up the ramp.
were unfortunately modified into a more
informal and less intense direction. Thus through a complex series of devices,
11 axes, vistas, reflections, inflections, con-
The scheme for Odenhallen dealt with the
trasts of opposites, the elements of the
40
area behind the library along Odengatan.
site are brought together into a unified
Stockholm Public Library, final Asplund designed a low narrow pillaredwhole. Asplund also tied his building
site plan.
market hall set back from the street to al-
complex into the surrounding urban fab-
low temporary open-air stands on the ric through two historic devices. The
sidewalk, in front of it. The hall was ori- height of the main square block of the li-
ented only to the street, being partly built brary aligns approximately with the cor-
into the earth because of the slope of the nice height of the surrounding apartment
land. The building thus acted also as a buildings, thus giving them all a common
wall between the street and the park be- reference plane. And while the surround-
In the actual building, some key elements were
hind, broken only at one point by a stair ing block of apartment buildings create a
modified or left out. The modification of the stream
set at a perpendicular angle to the build- dense urban poche, the library exists as
has already been mentioned. And, instead of the
concentrated grove of trees that provided a soft
ing that ascends to the park and via a its opposite, a free-standing object in a
contrast to the hard geometry of the built forms, stepped
the path to the top of the hill beyond.park-like setting carved out of the poche,
final project surrounded the pond and building In its relation to the library, the market
with thus both separated from and unified with
trees, diluting the power of the initial conception. hall is subordinate, essentially continuing its surroundings."1
the role of the wall played by the library
base. Here, as already mentioned, we
again have an inventive variation on the

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00
Stuart
213
38
site section.
41
Stockholm Public Library and
Park, view
41
Landscape fragments In his 1932 design for an outdoor cere-

monial plaza adjacent to the Woodland
Finally, I would like briefly to discuss a crematorium, later to be built in a dif-
few of Asplund's landscape details, ele- ferent form, Asplund has taken the tradi-
ments within larger contexts, to illustrate tional curving garden steps that well out
how in a sense he recharged traditional through a terrace wall and turned it into a
landscape elements with new vitality and large drop shaped stone paved area that
meaning. The proposal for paving Gustaf appears to have run, liquid like, out over
Adolf's square in Gothenburg is a case in the grassy landscape. A smaller tongue,
point. Borrowing an idea from the Ro- framed by two torches, continues on a
mans who inscribed a map of Rome in level course and becomes the platform
the Forum Romanum, Asplund superim- upon which the casket is set.
posed the irregular outline map of for-
tified old Gothenburg at an angle on an
overall rectilinear paving pattern of The outdoor clock at the crematorium is a
squares connected at midpoints, creating most traditional, and in this case utili-
a superb piece of abstract graphics. How- tarian, outdoor element. But by its place-
ever, not only is the reference to the ment and by the inflection he has given it,
Forum Romanum made, but the develop- Asplund has charged it with meaning. Not
ment of the European city in general, and only does the clock evoke the passing of
42 Gothenburg in particular is symbolized time and thus in this context, mortality,
E. G. Asplund, Gustav Adolf
Square, Gothenburg, 1924,
where the fortified medieval town out- but the way it is bent over evokes meta-
proposal for paving, plan. grew its walls and expanded out into the phors of both old age and the withering
landscape in a regular grid pattern. of a flower.

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Stuart
214
In his design for an outdoor drinking In 1940, Aalto wrote of Asplund in refer-
fountain for the Carl Johann school in ence to his Skandia Cinema, "I had the
Gothenburg done in the early 1920s, As- impression that this was an architecture
plund uses the traditional landscape ele- where ordinary systems hadn't served as
ment, the urn. But rather than the ornate the parameters. Here the point of depar-
urns set on pedestals so beloved by the ture was man, with all the innumerable
nineteenth century, Asplund uses a sim- nuances of his emotional life and nature.
ple but very sensual "vernacular" This contact with nature, man included,
amphora shape and sets it directly on the was clearly discernible in all of Asplund's
ground surrounded by four stone slabs projects. Much can be written about
forming a circle around it. The bulging Asplund's art and its different phases, but
sensual form with its jet of water appears if one studies them one will always find
12 almost to have grown out of the ground. this underlying direct contact with
Alvar Aalto, "E. G. Asplund in Memoriam (1940)," While the metaphor of drinking in classi- nature." 12
Sketches (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, cal culture is obvious, more importantly
1978), p. 66.
the sensuality of the act of drinking is
made manifest. And the curving form of
the amphora provides a contrast to the
rigorous rectilinearity of the adjacent
building.
43 44 45
Woodland Cemetery, proposed Woodland Crematorium, Clock. E. G. Asplund, Drinking
outdoor ceremonial plaza, 1932 Fountain, Carl Johann School,
gouache. Gothenburg.

192.188.53.214 on Mon, 15 May 2023 17:15:17 +00:00

Landscape and Architecture The Work of Erik Gunnar Asplund

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Landscape and Architecture: The Work of Erik Gunnar Asplund

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E. G. Asplund with Sigurd

Perspecta: The Yale ArchitecturalJournal, Volume 20 0079-0958/83/20195-020$3.00/0

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Landscape fragments In his 1932 design for an outdoor cere-

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