The square or plaza Almshöjden in the center of Woodland Cemetery. Photos: Andreas Bergstrom, Fubiz
CEMETERY IN THE FOREST
Erik Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz
Enskededalen. Stockholm, Sweden. 1920
Woodland Cemetery or Cementerio del Bosque is a beautiful piece of landscape design that Swedish architects Erik Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz REALIZED in the final years of the second decade of the twentieth century.
The reason for the assignment was the implementation of a new cemetery south of Stockholm city and occupying a former quarry that had been replanted with coniferous trees.
The proposal would develop Lewerentz Asplund and special poetic visual sensibility and intelligence in the use of the site. Many of the ideas proposed here would mean a radical overhaul in the way of organizing these collective spaces are the cemeteries.
Graves would be placed among the trees within forest stands to book a large central space open meadow rising from the main entrance. On the left would be placed buildings planned, chapels, intertwined with small courtyards crematories more formal garden to reach a large open columned portico with a central courtyard in the manner of Roman impluvium. From this high point is a path to a hill above the left that ends in a square plaza planted with deciduous trees. In the center of the assembly is placed a large granite cross that becomes the highlight that guides the visitor.
The composition reflects a romantic solemnity and respect naturalist, metaphorically expressing sadness traffic death involving. The tour allows family and friends accompany the feeling and remembering the deceased, recalling the Scandinavian landscape and elements of their culture as the Chapel in the Forest which is a synthesis of classical and traditional cottage temple minimum.
The two proposals are minimal and not overly designed freely scouring wooded areas like the graves are arranged. It is a way of remembering a past medieval and traditional archetypes derived from Viking burials.
Forest Cemetery in Stockholm is a work of great beauty and a high intensity poetic worth seeing when visiting the Swedish capital.
References:
Woodland Cemetery. Official site of the Cemetery
Analysis of the spaces. Jennifer Hendrich Cayton
Wide of Cemetery
The forest chapel designed by Sigurd Lewerentz. Photos: STONR Roberts
Access Path together with the central cross and the Almshöjden right. Photos: Andreas Bergstrom, Fubiz
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