Ralph Erskine’s Collection

One of the most prolific architects represented in the ArkDes collection is Ralph Erskine (1914–2005). The collection comprises around 60,000 items and spans from the 1930s to the early 2000s. Running as a common thread through Erskine’s drawings, sketches and models is a vibrant creativity and a determination to shape architecture with people at its centre.

In 1986, ArkDes (then the Architecture Museum) received the first donation from the 72-year-old architect Ralph Erskine. His career was far from over, and for several decades thereafter so-called “subsequent deliveries” arrived regularly, consisting of sketches, models, drawings and photographs. The collection is in high demand among researchers. His folders are often seen on one of the tables in the ArkDes Study Room.

Ralph Erskine was born in London in 1914, where he also trained as an architect. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, he travelled to Sweden by bicycle. He was drawn to what was happening in Sweden,
where the Social Democratic construction of the welfare state was in full swing. Erskine would go on to become one of Sweden’s most influential architects of the twentieth century.

The collection contains many “lively” sketches that appear to have been produced at great speed. Not infrequently, a small note can be seen, such as “this doesn’t look good”, or a comment on the weather. A floating hot air balloon often appears in his illustrations. It became his hallmark and lent the drawings a more playful and animated character.

During the 1940s, Erskine designed several workers’ housing projects and private villas. His illustrations of the industrial community of Gyttorp are almost surreal and resemble small works of art. Here, too, the formal language that would become his signature throughout his career is evident, with organic forms, varied colour tones and asymmetry.

When commissions declined during the 1950s, Erskine initiated, on his own accord, a proposal for a new centre for Kiruna. The project formed part of his studies of architecture in Arctic climates, which he pursued intermittently throughout his life. One of the projects that was realised is the Ortdrivaren block, comprising apartment buildings, terraced houses, retail and office buildings. The buildings’ rounded corners, sculpted roofs and hanging balconies are all climate-adapted features. Diagrams, conceptual sketches and photographs from Arctic locations appear in several folders and boxes, pointing to many years of thorough research.

Erskine’s largest project, and the one occupying the greatest shelf space in the archive, is the Byker Wall housing estate in Newcastle, 1969–1981, designed in dialogue with residents in a socially vulnerable part of the city. The result is a vast, winding structure, closed to car traffic and cold northerly winds, yet open and more small-scale in its southern orientation. The twelve-year project is spread across fifteen drawing folders, along with several rolls and boxes. The building’s serpentine form generated many exceptionally long and narrow drawings. His close collaboration with residents is documented in photographs showing Erskine in conversation with curious children at his temporary on-site office.

When Erskine designed Aula Magna for Stockholm University in 1994, he was 80 years old, and his career would continue for a few more years. His creativity and engagement remain clearly visible in the sketches from this period. During his final years as a practising architect, he designed, among other projects, the monumental office building The Ark in London in 1993 and Greenwich Millennium Village in London in 1997, together with EPR Architects Ltd. Both projects bear clear traces of Erskine’s distinctive formal language.

Erskine’s collection is being digitised gradually through image orders from researchers, alongside ongoing internal work to study, organise, catalogue and digitise material related to architecture in Arctic climates. This work may, in time, lead to an exhibition in the future.