Gunnar Asplund (Hardcover)

A contemporary of Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, Asplund pursued a unique architecture that displayed a blend of classical tradition, vernacular architecture and Modernism. Above all, he achieved a sensitive understanding of the relationship between architecture and its surrounding landscape, and it is such contributions that have made him recognized as Sweden's leading architect of the twentieth century. His abilities are amply demonstrated in masterpieces like the Woodland Cemetery. In 1915, Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz won the competition to plan a new cemetery for Stockholm. Their romantic plan, in which a symbolically straight, narrow pathway abruptly curves blindly away into the forest, and with open fields capped by burial-mound-like hillocks, earned both of them further commissions for buildings within the cemetery.