ASPLUND, Erik Gunnar

(1885-1940)

   Sweden's leading modern architect, Gunnar Asplund studied at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, completed his degree there in 1909, and went on to create an austere form of modernism that reveals a stripped-down version of classicism. Asplund's most famous building is his huge City Library in Stockholm, constructed in the 1920s. This monumental brick structure, consisting of three stories of library space, reveals a classical layout whereby a massive round drum surrounded by clerestory windows sits atop a giant square base. This symmetrical building, with a colossal door located at the center of each of its sides, recalls the ideal Renaissance centrally planned church. However, although the overall symmetrical design recalls Andrea Palladio's Villa Rotonda, here Asplund's drum is not topped by a dome, but is flat, which creates a strikingly original silhouette in this urban setting.

   Asplund's Woodland Cemetery, built into a beautiful park-like setting, was begun in Stockholm in 1915, with a crematorium added in the 1930s, and is one of the few 20th-century building complexes listed on UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. Here the wooded land-scape and slopping fields create a pleasing contrast to Asplund's sharply angular and somber buildings. A small, modern chapel, one of several built in the surrounding woods in 1918-1920, was constructed as a simple white structure with a sharply hipped black roof and timber columns organized in a classicizing style. In contrast, the crematorium (1934-1940) includes three chapels, with the imposing Monument Hall located on a grassy lawn in front of the Chapel of the Holy Cross. This stone structure has a sharply angular rhythm of pillars supporting a thin flat roof that creates a subtle contrast to the landscape. Rather than dominating the land, however, these structures reveal the architect's desire to organize the surrounding space in order to provide places of contemplation and rest. Asplund's modernism ultimately brought Swedish aesthetics into the forefront of 20th-century architecture.

   See also INTERNATIONAL STYLE.