The Woodland Cemetery and the Woodland Chapel
The Woodland Cemetery (1915–1940)
The Nordic Classical Movement produced a series of outstanding buildings throughout Scandinavia during a relatively brief period between 1915 and 1935. Many of the region’s major public buildings, including a parliament, a national concert hall, city library, courts, numerous university buildings, churches, police stations, power stations, schools, museums and galleries as well as banks, offices, villas and workers housing, were designed and built in these decades, and almost all remain highly regarded and well used today. Amongst this extensive and varied collection, there is perhaps one particular project which stands as the most evocative example of what the Nordic Classicists aspired to produce, and that is Stockholm’s Woodland Cemetery. It is the shared creation of the two greatest architects of the period – Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz – and saw this project partnership working together on this unique landscape and architectural design for over twenty years. Together they produced a totally integrated environment of beauty, peace and symbolism through the carefully considered, subtly sculpted and highly imaginative shaping of the existing forest site. It is in their designs for this wooded cemetery, its landscape, which fluctuates between Nordic forest, Roman antiquity and garden of Gethsemane and the fine series of buildings within it, that the spirit of Nordic Classicism most strongly lives on.
As already noted (Ch 1), the Scandinavian cities were growing dramatically and there was great pressure to house both the growing population and to cater for the consequent increasing numbers of the deceased. Cremation was introduced as part of the solution to this problem in the late nineteenth century, and this radical alternative to burial faced much less opposition in the Nordic countries with their ancient tradition of cremation by funeral pyre than in Southern Europe, where it was seen by many as the fire of Hell. Burial, however, remained a preferred option for many, and the competition brief for the design of the new Woodland cemetery was to cater for both rituals.1 The site chosen was in Skarpnäck, some 6 km south of the city centre, then just beyond the built-up area directly south the existing cemetery at Sandsborg and adjacent to a new railway station, providing access from the city centre. The 50 hectare site for the new cemetery was almost entirely wooded with one small hill and two small gravel pits.
The catalyst for Asplund and Lewerentz’s partnership for the Woodland Cemetery competition was Lewerentz’s entry for the design of the new Bergaliden crematorium in Helsingborg. This was exhibited at the Baltic Exhibition in Malmo in 1914, where it was seen by the young Erik Brygmann and Hilding Ekelund, who brought it to Asplund’s attention. Asplund and Lewerentz had been fellow students at the short-lived Klara School of Architecture, and their reunion was to be the catalyst for a partnership, which would last for the next twenty years until Lewerentz’s dismissal by the cemetery board in the 1930s. Lewerentz’s competition entry for the Bergaliden Crematorium offered a combination of a restrained, purified architecture along with an intense symbolism. A simple basilica bridged a stream, which disappeared under the building as the river Styx to emerge on the other side in a cascade, symbolizing the Waters of Life. Asplund was deeply impressed, and Lewerentz gladly accepted his offer of a joint entry for the Stockholm competition.
The cemetery board deserve credit for their management of the design and procurement process. Shortly after their purchase of the site in 1905, City Engineer A E Pahlman had prepared an initial layout for the cemetery, but it was felt that this neither responded sufficiently to the particular nature of their wooded site nor provided an appropriate ritual for the new crematoria. They were well aware of the contemporary Waldfriedhof woodland cemetery in Munich by the architect Hans Grassel (1860–1939), which opened in 1907 and for the first time allowed existing mature trees to dominate the cemetery, rather than buildings or statuary. This was perceived to revive the ancient link between burial grounds and nature that had been all but lost in the nineteenth-century ‘cities of the dead’, as well as appearing more appropriate at the dawn of a new social democratic age.2 Consequently, the board decided to hold an international architectural competition for the design of their cemetery, largely in the hope of attracting some German entries. Their brief very clearly stated that both the existing landscape, trees and typography should be respected and that the layout should be efficiently organized, and Ragnar Östberg (1866–1945) and Lars Israël Wahlman (1870–1952) (Asplund’s previous employer) were appointed as judges to advise them.
There were fifty-three entries which could be broadly divided into the romantic, in which the forest was largely preserved and divided by meandering, serpentine paths, and the formal, in which the forest was clearly secondary to grand manicured allées with funeral chapels on axis. Asplund and Lewerentz’s entry, which was entitled ‘Tallum’ (the pine tree) symbolized a society poised between tradition and modernity – wishing to embrace the new world while maintaining its spiritual links to ancient traditions. While preserving most of the existing forest, they also, ‘evoked a much more primitive imagery’ – a ‘raw Nordic wilderness’ that ‘freely mixed in elements from the Mediterranean and antiquity, whose effects are again heightened by becoming isolated elements in the Nordic forest’.3
Lewerentz’s sketches which accompanied the competition entry evoke this dark, wild forest landscape in which images of primitive Nordic burial, such as a leaning wayfarer’s cross, an ancient burial mound and simple graves scattered amongst trees (reminiscent of both Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)) are combined with Rome’s Via Appia and other elements from antiquity. The two architects used the forest, which they allowed to dominate every space within the cemetery as a symbol of the impenetrability of death. It is a vast dark wood within which the graves are distributed without hierarchy of either location or prominence. Cut through the forest were a number of sweeping paths and small clearings whose mystical names were also rich in symbolism – the Seven Gardens, the Way of the Cross, the Path of Urns and the Path of the Seven Wells. This was to be just the starting point for a design, which would be refined again and again over the next few decades.
In one of his very rare essays (‘Modern Cemeteries: Notes on the Landscape’ – a rough draft published after his death), Lewerentz describes cemeteries as places of peace and quiet, where the dead are commemorated – the thrust of the piece is an argument against increasingly lavish monuments as ‘the most evident symbol of the struggles and rivalries that characterised those people’s lives’, and he contrasts them with the beauty of old Scandinavian cemeteries where the stones are horizontal and don’t disturb the ‘feeling of peace emanating from eternity’.4 This is less nostalgia for tradition than an appreciation of an ancient approach which could now serve a more egalitarian society.
Because they had preserved almost all the existing trees, there was no opportunity to reshape the site, and so they incorporated the existing features into their design. From the entrance opposite the existing cemetery, a broad path – the Way of the Cross – swept around to reach the main funeral chapel, which was set on a slight rise (now occupied by the Meditation Grove); an existing track through the trees was developed into the Path of the Seven Wells, and further existing paths became the Way of the Urns, which led east through the trees from a clearing in front of the chapel to a circular columbarium, which was then crossed by another existing path, which became a further north/south axis through the trees. Existing gravel pits were transformed into terraced gardens, and a looping service road encircled the forest.
The judges were unanimous in selecting Asplund and Lewerentz, and they were appointed as architects both for the landscape of the cemetery and for the funeral chapels, which were to be built within it. Their only concern was that the design lacked any significant open spaces and that unrelieved shade in the forest might prove just too overwhelming for funeral parties and visitors. At their request, Lewerentz and Asplund therefore began further work on the refinement and development of their proposal – a task which would continue for the next eight years until the final form of the landscape design was agreed. Asplund confirmed that, while they continued to work together, Lewerentz led this work.
The arrangement in detail of the area, with its entry, boundary walls, roads, burial grounds, all of which have been undertaken by the architect Sigurd Lewerentz, is a long, difficult and, at first sight, not so rewarding or eye-catching a job but is perhaps the most remarkable hitherto and will in the end certainly be what will give the cemetery its character.5
By 1916, the main entrance had been further developed into a long rectangular recess in the vast stone cemetery wall, which more formally addressed the existing cemetery to the north and, most significantly, a large new clearing had been created to the north of the main chapel, which included a pond within a sweeping meadow. This revised layout was approved by the board in February 1917, and detailed design was instructed to proceed on the main entrance. In September, Asplund and Lewerentz agreed that Lewerentz would develop the design for the main entrance and that Asplund would design the chapel. By 1918, Lewerentz had settled on a semicircular propylaeum of massive masonry for the entrance. From this new point of departure, an axis cut through the trees at a slight angle, lined with great hewn stone walls, before crossing a large open space with pond, before concluding on the rear of the main chapel. (At this stage, this new open space was still very much a clearing in the woods and bore little relation to the final landscape surrounding the Chapel of the Holy Cross.) Within the left flanking entrance wall, Lewerentz created a constantly weeping wall, which was originally planned to be just the first of numerous stations along the route, as Lewerentz had witnessed in Pompeii, most of which, unfortunately, were never realized. The chapel at this stage was oriented north/south with a broad, tree-lined rectangular garden as entrance court, extending on to the gravel pits to the west.
Meanwhile, Asplund developed his design for the chapel (which became known as the Little Chapel) in 1918. This, perhaps more than any other element of the various proposals, reflects the close working arrangement and mutual respect, which the architects enjoyed. It is very much a smaller version of Lewerentz’s proposal for Bergaliden, tall and with two side windows lighting the catafalque within. Four columns below an entablature mark the entrance and the rear elevation is blank, save for three obelisks on a pediment and a low arch at ground level, as in Bergaliden. The parallels with Lewerentz’s later Chapel of the Resurrection are striking. This was presented to the board in November 1918 and rejected both as too expensive in stone and unacceptable in its north/south orientation, which conflicted with the Christian tradition of east/west. Asplund was invited to think again, and the result was his Woodland Chapel, which is dealt with in detail below. This modest building has become recognized as both one of Asplund’s greatest works and perhaps the most succinct expression of Nordic Classicism.
Meanwhile, Lewerentz continued to develop the overall site layout with increasing formality – the informal meadow space to the north of the main chapel now becoming entirely axial with a rectangular pond preceding a further exedra, bounded by hedging, which matched the entrance, providing a formal setting for the main chapel. This now responded to this north/south axis and also, crucially, with the body of the chapel oriented east/west, with colonnades facing both north and west, to the previously proposed formal garden. This new east/west orientation preceded the final main chapel design with, for the first time, a west-facing basilica and colonnade.
A few months after the consecration of the Woodland Chapel and the Cemetery in 1920, the board commissioned Lewerentz to design another small chapel, which would become the Resurrection Chapel. This was to be located at the southern end of the secondary axis, which Lewerentz had developed as the Way of the Seven Wells. (The design of the Resurrection Chapel is dealt with in detail elsewhere (Ch 7).) Lewerentz designed a restrained Classical chapel with a simple rendered basilica, on axis north/south, directly behind a limestone Corinthian portico, which terminated the long axis through the woods. Internally, the chapel was severe with little more than a bare stone catafalque in the centre of the space. The cemetery board was unhappy with the design and rejected it. They instructed Lewerentz to also realign his chapel so that it was organized on an east/west axis at 90o to the Way of the Seven Wells and to add an altar within the basilica. Lewerentz believed a shift in the axis of the chapel provided an utterly inappropriate conclusion to the 888-metre-long path through the trees and was, perhaps understandably, reluctant to respond to the board’s request. Regrettably, the ensuing conflict was not resolved for several months during which time Lewerentz’s relationship with the board was seriously damaged. A compromise was finally reached by Lewerentz by retaining the portico on axis and then shifting the basilica behind it onto the east/west axis at a slight angle to the portico, thus treating the Corinthian portico as a detached Classical fragment, discovered in the depth of this Nordic forest. Despite the apparent compromise (or indeed, partly because of it), Lewerentz’s design for the chapel was to become one of the most subtle and thoughtful buildings of the period.
In 1922, Asplund was commissioned to design a service building for the cemetery, and he produced another extraordinary building, complete with four sheet metal-clad, pyramidal roofs, clustered around a small courtyard and single conical roof. His brief was to provide a drying room for wet clothes, equipment store and identical sets of locker rooms and lunchrooms for male and female employees. Asplund’s response was to segregate the sexes on either side of a central axis on which sat a small courtyard and the manager’s office below the conical roof. Each of the four corner spaces (drying room, store and lunchrooms) was topped with green patinated copper pyramids. Like the Woodland Chapel, these have multiple readings – partly an ironic Valley of the Kings, partly Sultan’s copper tents as in Stockholm’s Haga Park and partly a modest City of the Living. The copper sheet gives the buildings a lightness, further reinforced by deep overhangs which suggest that the pyramids are floating, rather than being earthbound, and thus temporary, rather than permanent. The manager’s conical roof marks the seat of power of this small and strictly regimented kingdom.
By 1923, the cemetery plan had developed significantly with the main chapel moved east, onto its final site, significant excavations proposed to accentuate what was to become the Meditation Grove, which overlooks the space in front of the chapel and now acts as the start of the Way of the Seven Wells, leading through the forest to Lewerentz’s Chapel of the Resurrection. Its new form offered multiple interpretations ranging from the Christian as a symbolic hill of Gethsemane to the Norse as the ancient burial mounds of the Swedish kings at Uppsala (fifth to seventh century). Equally significant however is the avenue of trees which flanks the Way of the Cross, leading directly, on axis, to the main chapel portico and confirming Asplund and Lewerentz’s thinking at this stage that the main chapel, Meditation Grove and the depression of the former gravel pit between were still individual elements within the forest, rather than acting together, as they finally did in the great, biblical landscape which was finally achieved.
With the completion of the Chapel of the Resurrection in 1925, Lewerentz’s energies were switched to the supervision of the construction of the boundary walls, roads and earthworks, and from this point until 1930, both Asplund and Lewerentz developed their initial ideas for the design of the main chapel. Crucially, in addition to working together on the design of the cemetery and its buildings, they were both part of a team of designers, led by Asplund as chief architect, who from 1928 had been working on the design of the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930. As part of the development of the design for the exhibition, Asplund and its director, Gregor Paulsson (1889–1977), travelled together to see the Functionalist Weissenhof Exhibition houses in Stuttgart and on to both Vienna, where they met Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956), and Paris, where they visited Le Corbusier’s studio. This encounter with Modernism was to have a profound impact on both Asplund’s architecture and the future of Scandinavian architecture. As the design of the exhibition was developed, and the buildings emerged from their scaffolding, it was clear to everyone that these steel-framed buildings with their plate glass walls and brightly coloured blinds represented a completely different vision of the world than that which the Nordic Classicists had been seeking to create. Asplund and Lewerentz were converts to Functionalism and adopted it with an enthusiasm and real understanding of the possibilities of the new architectural approach that quickly separated them once more from the mere stylists.
The impact on their work at the cemetery was immediate as Lewerentz’s sketch for the main chapel of 1930 shows, with its severe rectilinear geometry, which is now stripped of all decoration. On conclusion of the exhibition, it was proposed that John Lundquist’s (1882–1972) Resurrection Monument, which had been commissioned for the exhibition, be given a permanent home as a focal point for Lewerentz’s entrance exedra. Asplund and Lewerentz pursued various options for achieving this to a point at which the cemetery board were so confused that they sought the advice of senior architects Ragnar Östberg and Lars Israël Wahlman (from the original competition jury) and Sigurd Curman (1879–1966) (head of the Swedish Cultural History Agency with responsibility for all Swedish National Monuments). These three reviewed Asplund and Lewerentz’s proposals and, crucially, recommended that the sculpture should not be located in the exedra, that it should be left entirely empty and that an obelisk should be erected beyond the exedra and walled drive, in the cemetery space, to draw visitors through. Asplund and Lewerentz accepted this suggestion but moved the obelisk further into the meadow space and combined it with the Resurrection sculpture in a revised layout of 1932. With the obelisk now concluding the axis set up by the exedra, they were able to move the Way of the Cross, off axis, to east of the space and treat it once more, as their original completion entry as an ancient stone sacred route (modelled on the ancient, paved streets which both Asplund and Lewerentz had seen and photographed on their study tours of Italy). Although initially crossed by several paths, which were later omitted, for the first time, the portico of the main chapel, Way of the Cross, Meditation Grove and meadow are now brought together in a single space with the gravel pits now largely filled and the rising ground towards the south smoothed out (Figure 69).
In 1934, the cemetery board decided to finally proceed with the design of the main chapel, which was to be the crematorium for the site. Initially, despite all of Asplund and Lewerentz’s work to date, they wished to hold a further competition for the design, but the city council refused to bear the cost, and so the board chose Gunnar Asplund to undertake the task, dismissing Sigurd Lewerentz at the same time. As the years had passed, the very different characters in the partnership had become more pronounced and more apparent to the board; the disagreements over the design of the Chapel of the Resurrection had never been forgotten. The thoughtful pace at which Lewerentz progressed was a growing frustration; whatever the reasons, it was a sad end to the partnership, which had created this great work of art. Lewerentz was furious, blaming Asplund for accepting the commission alone, and he never spoke to him again.
Asplund’s brief was now varied once more to now provide three funeral chapels, one larger and more significant than the other two. His solution was to locate all three (Faith, Hope and the Holy Cross) side by side, bordering the Via Sacra, connected by a low wall and concluding in the paved space in front of the great portico of the large chapel at the end of the slight rise. The main chapel is in many ways an enlarged and modernized version of the Woodland Chapel: a loggia (now with concrete frame clad in stone) provides a space for mourners to congregate before entering and on leaving the chapel; the interior is focused once more on the catafalque and coffin, which the seating surrounds. Asplund has again succeeded in providing a dignified space in which, in his own words, the ‘difficult moment of parting’6 is celebrated and supported. Lundquist’s Resurrection Monument was included within the portico in an unroofed bay, and following much further debate, the original obelisk, which Asplund favoured as being non-denominational was replaced by the great granite cross (echoing Lewerentz’s original competition sketches), which stands further back within the meadow space, concluding the entrance axis, silhouetted against the sky, giving both tragic meaning to the whole landscape and offering the hope of resurrection. Asplund completed the composition with an informal lily pond symbolizing transition and purification, and the entire composition remains dominated by the square of trees on Lewerentz’s Meditation Grove above – at once Nordic burial mound, Mount of Olives and a space for quiet reflection.
While the approach to this central element of the cemetery may have been radically different from the original wooded plan, this solution, finally, successfully, integrated the many elements and routes within the cemetery and created one of the earliest and most successful spaces of Modern landscape architecture. Colin St John Wilson describes the final composition superbly in his book on Lewerentz:
Opening in solemn mood, a semi-circular propylaeum of massive masonry converges up a narrow Via Sepulchra, whose walls embedded with collumbaria, frame a landscape that is as haunting as it is beautiful. The axiality of approach suddenly dissolves into an apparent irresolution – a device that would have been dismissed in conventional Beaux Arts terminology as an “unresolved duality”.
To the right, the eye is drawn towards a cross-cropped mound that recalls the bronze-age burial mounds of Agri (known as the Maiden Mounds) and into this is cut a broad flight of steps ascending to a tree lined platform marked out with a group of stone seats – the Grove of Remembrance. Straight ahead lies the long dark way of the Seven Wells, which slices through the dense forest of tall fir to arrive at the portico of the Chapel of Resurrection’.7 The language may have changed, the brooding darkness of the forest may have disappeared, but Lewerentz and Asplund’s ability to combine the ancient with the Nordic and thus achieve a biblical landscape which evokes the most profound emotional responses was undiminished.
FIGURE 69 The Way of the Cross, Credit – John Stewart.
The new crematorium complex was completed in 1940, four months after which Asplund died, at the age of fifty-five. His funeral service was one of the first to be held in the chapel of Hope, prior to his cremation. At the end of the ceremony, the great glazed wall to the colonnade was lowered and the mourners passed out into the meadow, where a monument to him was unveiled.
Lewerentz almost abandoned architecture entirely after his dismissal, setting up a factory to manufacture metal windows and doors in 1940, which he ran until 1955, when at the age of seventy, he entered an architectural competition for the new St Mark’s Church in Stockholm, which he won. His brilliant design for St Mark’s was followed in 1963 by St Peter’s at Klippan, and both brutally modern churches are now regarded as amongst the best of the twentieth century. He died in 1975 at the age of ninety.
The Woodland Chapel (1918–1920)
As noted above, Asplund and Lewerentz’s site plan for the cemetery of 1918 had the ‘Little Chapel’ at its centre in approximately the same location as Asplund’s final crematorium building. Asplund had developed a design for a small Classical building in stone for this site, but it proved too expensive for the cemetery board to pursue. Without a chapel of any kind, it was impossible for the cemetery to be consecrated and opened for use, and so it was decided to proceed with a timber building, which could be completed quickly and at a lower cost. The board had no wish to place what might be a temporary building on the key site, on the ridge in the centre of the cemetery, which they hoped to later construct the main crematorium, and so a site was selected in the woods to the south, behind and below the central space of the architect’s plan.
FIGURE 70 Woodland Chapel Plan, Credit – John Stewart. 1. Entrance Portico 2. Chapel
FIGURE 71 Woodland Chapel Section, Credit – John Stewart.
This chapel was neither part of the original plan for the cemetery, nor was it intended for more than occasional use, or even necessarily permanent use, once the main chapel was opened. The brief couldn’t have been much simpler – a small chapel for a few dozen mourners, oriented east/west, with an external covered waiting area (as there were no other facilities then on site). Largely as a result of its location, it was to become known as the Woodland Chapel.
Asplund had married Gerda Sellman, the sister of one of his former fellow students on 4 August 1918, and for their honeymoon, they went on a cycling tour of Denmark. One of the many architectural visits on their itinerary was the late eighteenth-century Liselund Estate on the island of Mon (1792–1795), designed by Andreas Johannes Kirkerup (1749–1810). Hack Kampmann (Ch 6) and his students had studied and measured these buildings and included their findings in a book which had been published earlier in 1918 and which Asplund had enthusiastically reviewed in Arkitektur.8 Amongst the buildings on the estate, which Gunnar and Gerda visited, it was the little Summer Palace (1792–1793) which most interested Asplund. It combined the Classical architecture used throughout the estate, here in the form of a portico with timber columns, with the Danish vernacular of steeply pitched thatched roofs over whitewashed walls. It is almost certain that this was the starting point for his revised design for the Woodland Chapel with the little Summer Palace suggesting a way in which Asplund could maintain his and Lewerentz’s desire for a Classical building within the woods, while providing the cemetery board with something much simpler and closer to a humble Swedish country church.
The new design, which Asplund submitted to the board in December 1918, fulfilled their wishes for a cheaper building, while actually delivering a design which was actually much more subtle, powerful and original than his previous ‘Little Chapel’. His success in combining the pure forms of Classical architecture with the materials and memories of the Swedish vernacular resulted in an extraordinarily intense piece of architecture. It draws so successfully on both the Classical and the vernacular that it can be read as a small Classical funerary temple or a country church, set within its walled graveyard; it is both a powerful, pyramidal symbol of death and a simple, rural wooden building; it is dark and forbidding, yet light, bright and peaceful. It is these contrasts, multiple meanings and potential interpretations, as well as the outstanding quality of the design of every element, that mark this tiny building as a great and important work of art.
Much of its extraordinary emotional impact comes from its remarkable setting. It is completely dwarfed by the surrounding pine trees. A low concrete wall surrounds the church and encloses this part of the forest in which the chapel sits. It would have been so easy and rational to create a large clearing to provide what might have been perceived as an appropriate setting and space for the building, but Asplund resisted the obvious, and the trees completely surround the building, encroaching upon it and oppressing it from all sides. The concrete wall, which creates the enclosure, appears like an ancient relic, surviving from before the wood. Even directly in front of the building, where the path broadens slightly into a gravel yard, the trees rise from this space – two trees within feet of the entrance portico itself. The roof of the chapel is steep and tall, surmounted itself by a great tree-trunk ridgepole, but the trees are two or three times as high as the building. They are a force of nature, towering above the works of man. ‘Building and surrounding landscape are conceived as an integral whole. One cannot separate the chapel from the carefully chosen setting, or it would lose much of its meaning and resonance. Memory of an archetype and its resonance is of key importance here. But Asplund abstracts, transforms and intensifies the experience of the original.’9
From the first glimpse of the chapel, through the plain rendered lichgate in the surrounding wall,10 Asplund carefully orchestrated the route to achieve maximum emotional impact. Moving through the pine trees, the chapel is glimpsed below the branches – two white columns, a black shingle roof and against it; above the doorway, glinting in the light of the slight clearing which the building itself creates is a small golden sculpture – Carl Milles’s ‘Angel of Death’, whose arms are open to greet approaching mourners. As we draw nearer, the entire roof appears – a black wooden-shingled pyramid – the ancient symbol of both death and eternity (Figure 72). Below it the colonnade is extended under the roof to provide a waiting area, and the twelve wooden columns (which symbolize the apostles) support the great roof and create an abstract continuation of this forest space (Figure 73). Ahead, great iron-clad doors, that look as if they have been beaten by a country blacksmith, open to reveal elegant wrought-iron gates, and as the mourners finally enter the chapel itself, the darkness of the forest and the portico contrast with this brilliantly lit, luminous space in the very centre of which is the literal and symbolic end of the route – the catafalque and coffin. The geometric purity and refinement of the design solution is striking – the plan – a circle within a square and the section – a triangle - into which a perfect semicircle is cut, creating a semi-sphere above the mourners, which symbolizes both a bright sky above and the shape of the earth, which will soon be departed. The design may have started as a garden pavilion in Liselund, but it has concluded with all the symbolic power and geometric purity of Boullez or Ledoux (Figure 74)
FIGURE 72 Woodland Chapel through the Trees, Credit – John Stewart.
FIGURE 73 Woodland Chapel Portico, Credit – John Stewart.
FIGURE 74 Woodland Chapel Interior, Credit – ARKDES.
Asplund himself confirmed his intentions in the journal Arkitektur in which he wrote:
The building was erected in the forest and was intended to be modestly subordinate to it. And so pines and spruces rise above the roof to twice the height of the building. The woodland road leads straight into the portico, borne up by twelve pillars, in which the mourners gather and wait. The iron-clad doors are flung open and through the delicate inner wrought-iron gates, one has a glimpse of the bright space of the chapel.11
The funeral ritual is at the centre of the design. Asplund further wrote: ‘The chapel must be shaped around its essential meaning, the difficult moment of parting’, and this aim was very effectively achieved. The entire space is focused on the catafalque and coffin, and this focus is further intensified by the natural light, which floods the central space from the skylight above the dome in contrast to the shadowy spaces, which surround it. Here surely lies Resurrection at the end of the human journey, and it was only by passing beyond the Angel of Death that it could be reached. The dome itself is supported on eight simple wooden Doric columns, which encircle the central space, but there ‘fluting and carving turns out to be illusory, achieved with paint, which makes the contrast between primitive exterior and cultured interior – all the more poignant’.12 Plain wooden chairs are arranged around the coffin and also spill out into the corners of the square plan, giving the feeling of an informal, ancient woodland gathering around the deceased. Behind the simple altar is a low arch – a dark opening to a world beyond.
The chapel, like the portico, the great roof and forest space within the walls, could not have been treated more simply. Asplund has refined the design of the building to a point where the purest elements of Classical and regional architecture combine to carry an extraordinary weight of memory and meaning. Every detail is carefully considered and reinforces the narrative: the forest trees become the simple Doric columns of the portico (which Asplund increased in number during construction); the great pyramid of the roof has no gutter to distract from the pure triangular form; the capitals of the columns to the portico are very slightly detached from the ceiling, allowing the great roof to hover and give the pyramid an ethereal weightlessness; the keyhole in the iron-clad doors is in the shape of a skull (another symbol of death which must be passed to reach the light beyond); the simple stone floor, like some ancient paved atrium, reminds us of the eternal, unchanging nature of our human condition; and the pure white vault of the chapel is a perfect luminous sky hovering above the coffin. There is no hint of wilful imagination at work here – every form, detail, junction and material has been selected and refined with a single purpose in mind to support, celebrate and give meaning to ‘the difficult moment of parting’. Asplund understood that every element must play its role, not just visually, but in a three-dimensional experience for the senses: stepping from gravel onto the stone paving, the weight of the iron-clad doors and the lightness of the lace-like gates within, the oppression of the low ceiling of the portico before the release of the chapel vault, absolute tranquillity after the wilderness of the forest – these were no coincidences. This is truly great architecture and confirms Asplund, in the words of Stuart Wrede, as a ‘genius as evoker of moods and emotions’.13
Within the walled precinct of the chapel sits a further low building – the mortuary sunk in the earth with a low grass roof, which sweeps up over the doorway, revealing apparently ancient stone walls and lintel over its plain sheet metal doors. To the south of the chapel, on axis with the solid body of the building, Asplund designed a sunlit, sunken children’s cemetery – a difficult task for him, having lost his own firstborn child himself in 1920 while the chapel was being built. The entire composition has a poignancy:
A space created that lies beyond our own age, where we enter the rhythmic beat of history. Some will summon up the courage to say that here we are surrounded by a type of architecture that is conscious of death and allows the face of melancholy to appear, not as an uninvited guest but as a welcome friend of the family.14