Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life

Sigurd Lewerentz (1885–1975) is one of architectural history’s most revered and most mythologised architects. Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life is the first ever comprehensive exhibition of the life and work of the Swedish architect, drawing on ArkDes’ unique and complete collection of his drawings, personal archive and library. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the works of an architect who is perhaps even more influential today than he was in his own time.

It is Lewerentz’s late churches that have gripped the imagination of architects across the world, in particular the powerful, brick structures of St Mark’s in Björkhagen, Stockholm and St Peter’s in Klippan. These two profound works, completed in the 1950s and 60s, were famous in their time and remain spellbinding today. But the Lewerentz of these churches was an old man, and it was this lone, taciturn genius, with black overcoat and cigar in hand, that became the figure familiar to architectural history.

Four years of new research by ArkDes curator Johan Örn reveals a completely new picture of Lewerentz, moving away from the cliché of the uncompromising, lone maestro, and painting a picture of an artist constantly in tune with and adapting to his time, always collaborating and with a restless curiosity about the modern metropolis and its possibilities.

The exhibition, designed by Caruso St John ↗, displays the architect’s creative world: his early, lesser known designs for shops and commercial interiors; the landscape and chapel at the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm (now a UNESCO world heritage site); graphic design and architecture for the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930; industrial design for his manufacturing company IDESTA; and the built masterpieces of Malmö Eastern Cemetery, the Riksförsäkringsanstalten office building in Stockholm, Malmö Opera, Villa Edstrand in Falsterbo, and the two great churches. His production was wide and includes workers’ housing, villas, furniture, wallpapers, tombstones, city plans, factories, religious buildings, advertising, modern office buildings, hotels and shops.