By Ernest Cheung
Sigurd Lewerentz’s life and works are about to be presented in their first major exhibition in ArkDes, a Swedish national museum that’s also known as the Museum of Architecture, from the 1st of October 2021 – 28th of August 2022. And certainly, it’s not a good idea to miss out on the works of one of the most influential and fabled architects in history.
Despite being such a famous Swedish modernist architect, Sigurd Lewrentz’s had rarely published any books nor given any public speech about his projects in his lifetime. Yet, this fact further mythicized his character as the projects he built were grand, enigmatic; words alone simply couldn’t describe them. Some of his most famous projects were chapels, churches and cemeteries, forming the theme of “Life and Death”. Yet, this wasn’t all to it. One of the two curators of this exhibition, Kieran Long, said, ”There’s his famous buildings, which are existential, they’re about life and death and profound themes of what it means to be a human being.” (Levy, 2021)
In this exhibition, there’ll be no certain focus on any part of Lewrentz’s worklife; from the planning of his most famous projects, to his lesser known designs for shops and commercial interiors, are all going to be displayed. For example:
(Resurrection Chapel, Enskede, Stockholm, impossible perspective, ink on trace, ca. 1924, ArkDes)
(Proposal illustrations for a restaurant in Sturegatan back in 1930, ArkDes)
Through all these little and big displays, the audience could then get a better grasp of his personal life too.
The expert researcher of this exhibit Johan Örn, will also add in his 4 years of new research and clear up the misconceptions that Lewrentz was a lone designer; instead, he was someone who knew the human desires well, and someone who could integrate these desires to items of our everyday lives, like furnitures, wallpapers, or building materials, portraying him not only as a designer but also an artist.
In this exhibition, there’ll be over 700 pages of drawings, photographs, models, and excerpts from Lewerentz’s personal library.
References:
https://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/modernist-architect-sigurd-lewerentz-profile-sweden
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