Kieran Long; Johan Örn; James Taylor-Foster
with
ArkDes; Petra Gipp; Mikael Olsson (Stockholm, Sweden)
In the book Sigurd Lewerentz 1885-1975, in his essay entitled The Sacred Buildings and the Sacred Sites, Colin St. John says of Lewerentz: “He was a man of few words; all he had to say was said by the way a brick was laid, a pair of beams straddle a column, a piece of glass is clamped across an aperture in a wall, a path is cut through a forest. What for lesser mortals is called ’detail’ was for him a means of heightening and transfiguring the mundane, and in that he is of the company of Hawksmoor and Borromini”. The entire archive of Sigurd Lewerentz is held in Sweden’s National Centre for Architecture and Design: ArkDes. It is rarely exhibited. The 16th International Architecture Exhibition is a unique opportunity to experience aspects of Lewerentz’s selected work from new perspectives. Responding to particular lines of the FREESPACE manifesto, “additional spatial gifts” and “unexpected generosity”, three chapels, dating from 1925, 1943 and 1960 demonstrate the development of Lewerentz’s thinking and making. These three chapels are presented using original and new work, focusing on fundamental interests of Lewerentz: material for place, ritual and landscape.
YF+SMcN