Gunnar Asplund

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Gunnar Asplund
Personal information
Name	Gunnar Asplund
Nationality	Swedish
Birth date	22nd September 1885
Birth place	Stockholm
Date of death	20th October 1940
Work
Significant buildings	The Snellman House, Djursholm, (1918), Stockholm (1920) The Listers County Court House, Sölvesborg, (1921), The Skandia Cinema, Stockholm (1923), Stockholm Public Library, (1928),
Significant projects	Skogskyrkogården (1914-40), Gothenburg City Hall (1917-37)

Erik Gunnar Asplund (22 September 1885 – 20 October 1940) was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a representative of Swedish neo-classical architecture of the 1920s, and during the last decade of his life as a major proponent of the modernist style which got its breakthrough in Sweden at the Stockholm International Exhibition (1930).

Asplund's major work is probably the Stockholm Public Library, constructed between 1924 and 1928, which stands as the prototypical example of the smoothly Nordic Neoclassical Swedish Grace movement.

Another important work is the extension of the Gothenburg City Hall building which Asplund started on 1917 and finished 1937 - it shows his transformation from neo-classical to functionalist architect, a transformation in parallel with other European modernists like Erich Mendelsohn. Asplund found direct inspiration in the work of Le Corbusier.

Asplund was also known for his collaborations with Sigurd Lewerentz: the Skogskyrkogården, a cemetery which is a UNESCO world heritage site. Skogskyrkogården was created between 1914 and 1940, and serving as the main architects for the Stockholm International Exhibition (1930). The modernist, exposed-glass-and-steel-frame Entry Pavilion at the world's fair was internationally influential, although temporary.

Gunnar Asplund is considered perhaps the most important modernist Swedish architect and has had a major influence on later generations of Swedish and also Nordic architects ^[1].

[edit] Notes

1. ^ On Gunnar Asplund at the Swedish National Encyclopediae website (in Swedish, password needed)

[edit] Images

Stockholm Public Library

The extension of the Gothenburg City Hall

Gothenburg's City Hall, interior

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gunnar Asplund

• Website about Asplunds work on Stockholm Public Library
• Website with several photos about Asplunds work on Stockholm Public Library
• Further mentions/photos about his major masterpiece Stockholm Public Library
• Gunnar Asplund at Find-A-Grave]
• 5 films with English subtitles about the City Library of Stockholm designed by Gunnar Asplund. See the view from the roof, enjoy all the furnitures designed by Gunnar Asplund, look into the marvellous Rotunda and so on.