Gunnar Asplund: The Dilemma of Classicism: AA EXHIBITION GALLERY, MEMBERS' ROOM

&BAR, 29 SEPTEMBER –29 OCTOBER 1988

Author(s): Colin St John Wilson
Source: AA Files, No. 18 (Autumn 1989), pp. 88-96
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29543667 .
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GunnarAsplund: The Dilemma ofClassicism
AA EXHIBITION GALLERY, MEMBERS' ROOM & BAR 29 SEPTEMBER - 29 OCTOBER 1988

MODERNISM AND MODERNISMUS
Gunnar Asplund claims our attention now,
only because of the celebration of his centenary,
but also because his great talent was shot
throughwith hesitations and reservations that
reflect, in a unique way, upon the debate in
architecture in the late 1980s. Certainly the two
poles of thatdebate are graphically summarized
within the scope of a single project: the now
familiar pairing of the 1925 and 1937 versions
of theGothenburg Law Courts. These images
(both exemplary of their kind) all too easily
from some branch of an old tree but is a new
plant growing directly from roots', and which
not sees 'the industrializationof building methods'
to be 'the key problem of the day' (Mies).
Whatever is supposed to have gone up in smoke
in the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe had already
been condemned over thirtyyears earlier by the
work of Asplund and Aalto ? and not by theirs
alone. What of the 'living past' of Terragni's
Danteum, the 'living future' ofWright's John?
son Wax
headquarters, the decorative
ism of Bryggman's Abo crematorium, and the
dismissal of high-tech inLe Corbusier's house
on the site? deflection, inflection,variants on
the circle and semicircle ? in a running ex?
change between specific circumstance and ideal
prototype. But note the always positive use of
in-between space in the poche of encircling
geometries. Just to look at theplan is like read?
ingmusic. And it is only by such means that a
huge official building is mediated to propor?
tions that invite in the observer a balanced and
empathetic response.
symbol? Furthermore, the spirit that informed As?
plund's approach sprang from a rigorous and
sensitive interpretation of context. For instance,

suggest that the debate can instantlybe reduced forMme Errazuriz? What of the widespread theuse of subsidiary levels thatfall gently from
to a question of style alone. Taste', said Degas, progeny of Berlage, Mackintosh, Loos, Van de themain datum, through the lateral courtyards,
'is a vice'; but thereare many who are happy to Velde andWright, whose work never rejected to arrive at a waterside promenade, is effort?

indulge in it, and a few (including Asplund's association with the past, never lost thewill to lessly contrived. It is as if the architect were
son) who are convinced thatAsplund made the respond to context and climate, or to thedesires merely themidwife to a deeply desired and in?
wrong choice. of its inhabitants,and never lacked the quality evitable flowering of forces inherent in the
?
Now, thatmay make a good chapter in the of figurativepower never, in fact, took the given situation. Asplund once described the
conspiracy theoryof history,which defines the route to Pruitt-Igoe? For the distinction has Gothenburg Exhibition complex by Ahlberg
nature of modernism as the InternationalStyle, been lost between the caricature of Modern? and Lewerentz in termsof 'formswhich do not
pin-points its 'death' in the demolition of the ismus and the authentic grounds for the impulse threaten, but invite'. No phrase could better
Pruitt-Igoe housing in St Louis in 1972, and of modernism: on the one hand, the aggressive describe his own achievement with thisproject,
discovers the 'birth' of post-modernism in the modernism of the 'brave new world'; of the so utterlyfree from the rhetoricand bombast of
top hamper of Philip Johnson's AT&T building International Style; of the rejection of history the late Beaux-Arts composition employed by
of 1975. To the contrary, I would argue that the (historywas not taught at the Bauhaus) and of his contemporaries inHitler's Germany, Mus?
briefest reflection upon the work of Asplund ornament; of systembuilding and mechanization solini's Italy and Stalin's Russia.
raises a fundamental challenge to that theory, in command; of the planning by four functions Indeed, there is no betterway to confirmAs?
and it is no coincidence thatneitherGiedion in . . . and, on the other hand, the critical and plund's mastery in thismode than to compare
Space, Time and Architecture nor Jencks in broad-based modernism epitomized by Joyce, his Chancellery with Speer's Chancellery for
Modern Movements in Architecture makes any Eliot, Picasso or Mahler, with its common Hitler in Berlin, for, in that clumsy piece of
mention of Asplund at all ? in other words, at vision, forwhich a heightened relationship to the black theatre, every attemptwas made to use
both ends of thehistorical survey of themodern past is intrinsic to innovation. Inevitably, the Beaux-Arts devices, in order to intimidateany
movement, the true significance of Asplund's hasty 'philosophers in action' required propa? visitor to the F?hrer. The promenade architec
work has been tacitly ignored. ganda, which in turn required the simple state? turale, from the point of entry inWilhelm?
In his 1940 obituary 'Asplund InMemoriam', ment, impatientof the complexities of authentic strasse, to the throne room of the 'great man'
Alvar Aalto put his finger on the crux. He evidence. We know the outcome only too well. himself, is extended to the limit into a long
wrote of Asplund's attempt 'to tie together the But the conclusions have once again dismissed march to the scaffold.However, at the technical
threads of a living futurewith those of the that evidence, and by stupidly confounding level Speer is quite without the competence to
living past. In the creation of forms, pastiche authentic modernism with the disgrace of carry out his programme. Three observations
and copying were as alien to him as rootless Modernismus, theyhave compounded the error. suffice to show this.
technocratic constructivism.' If we associate All the talk now is of revaluation, of a concern First, the longmarch gets off to a poor start.
this reminderwith Aalto's own crucial article of for linkswith thepast. If that is theorder of the There are three monumental entrances from
the same year, 'The Humanizing of Architec? ?
day, better by far a hard look at that authentic Voss-Strasse, but theyare in thewrong place
ture', we get a critical insight into the whole strainofmodernism which was overwhelmed by two of them lead slap-bang into a lateral sand?
project of modernism, which turns the Pruitt the hollow victory of Modernismus. And it is bank, in theirattempt to grope northwards on to
Igoe incidentof thirtyyears later into insignif? precisely such a revaluation that is provoked by the main, east-west axis, initiated at the main
icance. In that piece, Aalto refers to 'the first an examination of Asplund's work. entrance fromWilhelmstrasse. It is as if Speer
and now past period of Modern Architecture', were incapable of effecting an appropriate
and pursues a critique of the naive interpret? The issue of classicism ninety-degree change of direction, but could
ations of 'function' and 'rationalization', which Let us firsttake the question of thedeath or re? only think in a straightline? like a good Nazi.
'have not gone deep enough'. Remember that birthof classicism, an issue on which Asplund's Second, the attempt to compose the Voss
Aalto had only the year before completed the testimonyhas great authority, for a number of Strasse facade in terms of a central pavilion is
Villa Mairea, which, in the words of Juhani reasons. In thefirstplace Asplund, like his con? pure fakery, since the pavilion is devised by
Pallasmaa, seems 'to question thebasic stylistic temporaryLewerentz, was, in the true sense of insertinga couple of blanks at each end of what
attitudes ofModernism ... by creating impure the term, a master of the neo-classical school, in reality is only a circulation, or secondary,
collisions of motifs, and by fusing together grounded in traditionalmasonry structure, in element. And, finally, consider the use of
itemsfrom separate intellectualcategories (such that extraordinary Indian summer known as poche. In Asplund's project, two geometries
as modernity and folk tradition).' Nordic Doricism. As an example, one could are allowed an active presence, and the space
In both Asplund and Aalto, we have come a point to his 1922 competition design (withT?re between is activated by thatdialectic to become
long way from the prescriptions of the Inter? Ryberg) for the Royal Chancellery in Stock? a positive thirdelement. For Speer, poche is a
national Style, thatfirst stage of a modernism holm. Itwould be tedious to spell out themany way of negating the relation between two geo?
which, in the phrase of Gropius, 'is not built strategies employed to cope with shiftingaxes metries; it ismerely a kind of inertmagma that

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 \\ dT~

f'

I I / g ^ /toyfl/ 1922
Stockholm,
Chancellery, (with Site
TureRyberg).
plan and
(top)
^3^g^^^^:^?=3^pcj^g=M^lPPMt=^^ comparison withpoche ofAlbertSpeer's BerlinChancellery,1936
(bottomleft)
-?---,?I (bottom right).

89

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 allows him manically to straightenup the bits Mussolini, forwords used quite correctly inone wonderful buildings only because he ignores
thatkeep skiddingout of control. age can, in a later age, 'become thewords of a many aspects of a building. If he solved more
My choice of Speer's incompetence as foil to cheat'. problems his buildings would be far less potent.'
Asplund's mastery is, of course, not innocent, In his inaugural lecture as Professor of the And so itwas that, to take on board all his prob?
for one of the least comprehensible episodes of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, lems, Asplund needed a language with a range
the currentarchitecturaldebate is the attempt to Asplund remarked that 'our understanding of farbeyond thatof theclassical.
summon up the unquiet ghost of Speer and pre? architectonic space has changed so much, that One quite explicit example of the deliberate
sent him as the great talentmartyred by the the supremacy of the rules that formerly employment of shifts in scale and sequences of
uncultured brutes of modernism. The whole governed architecturehas been destroyed'. And inside-outside-inside is corroborated in a de?
venture cries out for the derision thatChaplin so he came to break themould of the classical scription of the Skandia Cinema, written by
directed at it inThe Great Dictator. language with a conviction unchallenged in its Asplund himself in 1922. In this case, he found
The second aspect that lends authority to authority.His challenge was immediatelyestab? the classical language very appropriate to the
Asplund's witness is that, for him, thedecision lished in the variety of invention of the 1930 fantasy world he had been asked to provide.
to abandon the classical language
was not easy. Stockholm Exhibition, which, unlike the Stutt? Simo Paavilainen, in his notes on the 1985
Between winning the competition for the gartExhibition of 1927, was not confined to the Asplund Symposium, describes thiswell:
Gothenburg Law Courts in 1913 and completing themeof housing, but played upon urban themes
thefinal design in 1937, he produced at least six ? places of public gathering, recreation and It is profitable to examine how richly and abundantly
in the Skandia Cinema builds houses within
alternative schemes. Delayed by economic communication. In this sense, ithas claims to a Asplund
interiors or exteriors within houses, how he enlarges
crises, harassed by changes in the taste and priorityof itsown. corridors and shrinks halls. The cinema is also a
values of theclient committee, but spurredon by beautiful example of interlacing an existing old build?
his own convictions as they slowly evolved, To extend the language of the tribe
ing into a new theme. In the street there stands a grey,
Asplund made proposals that ranged from an We could characterize Asplund's special gift as weathered neo-renaissance facade. The grey asphalt
early evocation of theNational Romantic mode, the ability to extend the language, with a range of the pavement extends into the portico, linking the

through variations on the neo-classical, to the of vocabulary which exceeds by far thatof any lobby to the street. In the middle of the lobby there
final, exemplary modernist invention.One has other architect. Each building is thought out stands a rectangular colonnade. First one comes from

simply to observe the successive stages of this anew, rightdown to thedetails, all at the service
an exterior to an interior, but still as to an exterior.
Then one descends a flight of stairs to the foyer,
scrupulous development, to be made aware of of the central impulse in his work: to create a whose walls and ceiling were originally dark green. In
the unique search for authenticity. It is as if the narrative out of the operational, contextual and
the middle of the greenness stands a brightly-lit,
hands of a mountaineer were groping for a hold figurative requirementsof each situation. white-walled building with cornices and red velvet
thatcould be trusted to carry over a void. What He conceived of every building in terms of ? a white building in a deep green space.
doorways
had servedwell thewit of theLister Courthouse, such a narrative, and deployed a wide repertoire The visitor believes that he is entering a building, but
and the light-hearted fantasy of the Skandia of architecturalmeans, with astonishing invent? inside he finds a moon and a deep blue arch of sky.
Cinema, could not bridge thegap between. iveness and precision. The phrase promenade The visitor is surprised three times with variations of
architecturale is too peremptory to cover the the same theme on his way from the sooty facade to a
. . Words
. ? the change of
strain,
range of experience offered silver screen. Upstairs,
seat in front of the glimmering
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, the sense
pace, the shiftsof scale, the alternations of en? spectator's of scale is confused: the
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, entrances to the boxes have the appearance of a row of
and exposure, and con?
velopment expansion
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place* stately facades; whereas in the auditorium the giant
traction, passage and rest, light and dark,
ornament of the balcony's front wall gives the im?
In his famous essay Tradition and the Indi? natural and man-made. The word theatre more
pression of a smaller space than the actual dimensions
vidual Talent', T. S. Eliot propounds a dynamic nearly approximates to the refinement with of the auditorium.
view of tradition as 'an easy commerce between which each episode in the sequence is elab?
theold and thenew', which operates bothways, orated. An exhaustive inventory of relevant In particular, the nesting of the circular upper
so that the new ismodified by thepast, and the detail ? the colour and tactilityof surface, the level boxes, replete with intimatedouble seat,
? is tucked in two steps above thebalcony edge ? a
past is modified and seen afresh by the intro? delight in thepolished and thewoven pur?
duction of thenew. He emphasized thepoint that sued with an almost Proustian indulgence, and, loggia in a balcony overlooking an auditorium
?
the really new meant an extension of language to at times, not without the hint of an overripe is a delicious play upon the Pompeian
embrace an extension of sensibility, of aware? elegance inherited from art nouveau. This in? aedicule, which Asplund had noted on his tripto
ness, of experience. Wittgenstein said that 'the deed is the transformationof theabstract reading Italy.
limits of my language are the limits of my of space into the spiritof place. It is as if each Each of Asplund's buildings invites this type
world'. Certain things can be thought in one design is built up like a portrait, so that each of spatial narrative. For instance, the entry

language only, and not inany other. building has a unique set of forms. sequence of the Stockholm Library contains a
So it iswith the classical language of architec? The realism of such a portraitalso requires its typical instance of the use of counterpoint, in
ture.There are thingsthat itcannot say and there own formof freedom and can only be achieved which the axial entry is subjected to the inter?
are things so entrenchedwithin it that it cannot by close attention to operational criteria. This is ference of the side stairs? the tall, exciting
shed them.We have seen that for a Speer (or a illustratedby the account of one of Asplund's shaft of space that ascends in a gentle curve
Piacentini, or an Iofan) the language lends itself assistants that, when overwhelmed by the between the enclosed drum and its protecting
all too easily to assertions of power and author? number of factors theywere required to take on cube.

ity. Herbert Read said that 'in the back of every board, Asplund alone was allowed to suggest
dictator can be found a bloody Doric column'. any elimination, and then of one factor only. Acceptera
Wittgenstein observed, on the completion of This compares significantly to Paul Rudolph's Asplund never allowed a detail from one build?
Canada House in Trafalgar Square, that it praise of Mies's reductionism: 'It is a character?
ing to be used in another, an approach which
proved that we are no better than Hitler or istic of the twentiethcentury thatarchitects are clearly separates him from theheroic goal of the
highly selective in determiningwhich problems modern masters to establish a new canon
replete
* T. S. . . Mies
. with universal rules, standards and building
Eliot, 'BurntNorton', 1935, Four Quartets. they want to solve for instance makes

90 7W
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types.The titleof theonly polemic towhich he the 1920s was that of late-comers (1930) re? without precedent. Fifteen years earlier Lewer?
?
ever subscribed is Acceptera ansponding to an initiativeborn under another sky.
acknow? entz had not only disengaged the portico of his
ledgementof thepioneering groundwork carried Our perception of that response has been ob? Chapel of the Resurrection, but set it a few
out by theDutch, theGermans and 'theGenie of scured by the general impression projected by degrees askew of themain axis of the chapel,
the Lamp', as Ahlberg called Le Corbusier. thework of the other signatories of Acceptera and in so doing allowed itto pull thewest facade
Except for the brief and brilliant fling of the and their followers. The philosophical ground? askew to align with it.A comparison of what is
1930 Stockholm Exhibition, he never concerned ing of thatwork was heavily sociological, and achieved in each case by thismove indicates the
himself with the sort of polemic developed by its stylisticnaturewas rendereddown to a bland differences between the two architects. In the
the participants of CIAM; all thathe had to say ness so banal and cosy that, in the form of the case of theChapel of theResurrection, the part
was said in the language of building. And, New Empiricism, itbecame a major catalyst of played by this inflexion is crucial in compensat?
within that language, he focused not upon 'le theNew Brutalistmovement. Aalto enjoyed tell? ing for the 'incorrect' (non-axial) location of the
? a location
Probleme du grand nombre' and the laws that ing the story of theman who startedout of his portico required not only by the
would provide a framework for mass produc? sleep, shouting 'Who can save me from Val axis of arrival through the forest, but also by
tion,but on theunique. lingby?' Lewerentz's adherence to the principle of pas?
In fact, this unshackled freedom from estab? The themesaddressed byAsplund and Lewer sage, which required that themourners, instead
?
lished norm is thevery condition upon which the entz were very different the sacred, the of leaving by the same door throughwhich they
and of architecture are the monumental ? and their col? had entered, should make a ritual passage
range variety Asplund's institutional,
grounded, togetherwith a concern with orches? laboration of more than twenty years on the through the chapel to exit into a garden of re?
tration,forwhich the precedent was his former Woodland Cemetery produced the greatest membrance.. There is an intensity in Lewer?
? above all where the monumental of our time. There is entz's with this that recalls the part
mentor, Ragnar Ostberg landscape struggle
distortions inplan suggest analogies with natural nothing to compare with this sublime work, ?
played by distortion in theworks of Cezanne
form. The mention of nature recalls another ex? except the great temple sites of Greece; to the a distortion which is not an end in itself,but the
tension to Asplund's palette, or repertoire of southern acropolis of stone, addressing its by-product of conflicting forces.
?
means landscape.
a
Setting aside for moment hornedmountain and clear blue sky, thishaunt? In the case of Asplund's chapel, there is not
the tragic and sublime landscape of theWood? ing landscape respondswith thenatural formsof the same intensity; formal relations are ever so
land Cemetery (for which Lewerentz was the the north ? the narrow path through a tall slightly diluted by the pragmatic. For instance,
prime mover), we see in all of Asplund's later forest, clipped grass on the burial mound, still although the portico is apparently in a normal
ground-plans a poche inwhich the order hinted water shimmering in the raking lightof a low relationship to the axis of the chapel, the chapel
at isdrawn from the irregularrhythmsof nature. sun. Here thephysical and themetaphysical are is in fact shifted off-centre to the portico, to
The Scandinavians' relationship to nature is folded intoone ? straightahead thehuge empty allow the cortege to drive through. It accord?
highly charged for a number of reasons. The sky, to the left the cross, plunged like a sword inglycorresponds to only fourof the seven bays
long, dark winter invests sunlightwith mythical into the rising ground: the tragic confronted by of the portico, and even then the column that
powers (Orpheus and Persephone could well be the indifferenceofNature. corresponds to the central axis of the chapel is
the presiding spirits). There is always a certain From the timeof theirjoint victory in the 1915 simply removed to accommodate the required
?
drama white nights, the low sun, snowscapes, competition, Asplund and Lewerentz had breadth of entry. Centrality is assigned to the
dark woodlands, islands set in lakes ? and, worked togetherclosely and amicably. Each had impluviumand itsexpressionist sculpture.
when the ice breaks, there is good reason to built a chapel in the grounds of the cemetery, The effect is here obtained inways that the
celebrate. What Asplund and Aalto brought to and ithad always been supposed that the large stricter Lewerentz would have rejected, a com?
the vision of an organic architecture is too central Chapel of theHoly Cross would be an positional dilution which reflects a comparable
familiar to need discussion here. Let it suffice to extension of that collaboration. Many joint softening in the treatmentof thematicmaterial.
say that,whereas for Frank Lloyd Wright the studies were done rightup to 1934, against the In the competition drawings for the original
organic was manifested for themost part by a background of Lewerentz 's principal respons? design of theWoodland Cemetery, the now
shiftin geometry, forboth Asplund and Aalto it ibility for the landscaping. The main bones of famous image of theWay of theCross was made
injected a whole repertoire of forms and the idea were worked out: the chapel shifted off by Lewerentz. Asplund's many studies for the
processes of Leonardesque ramification, often centre to the east of the entry axis, the free? final version of the chapeLwere evasive on this
drawn from the unique qualities of a particular standing cross, a major portico. The portico is theme, focusing largely upon an obelisk, and it
region.
an extraordinary invention, in which the tall seems that he resisted, right up to the last
cube of the chapel is hollowed out to allow the moment, the returnof the cross as proposed by
Connections and collaborations north-south routeof entrytopass throughand is Lewerentz. In the end, its presence was re?

Asplund's relationship with Aalto has been fully then reformed by two sets of clustered fins en? affirmed, and its confrontation with the portico
recounted by G?ran Schildt? the close friend? closed at ground level. These tall and austere ? a stripped formof thepagan temple? recalls
ship and the running exchange of ideas, each forms are original and oddly disturbing; I sense in a new mode Alberti's daring conjunction of
taking turnsto take the lead.What is less famliar at this stage thedominating hand of Lewerentz. these themes. Perhaps, after all, themystery of
is his relationship with Sigurd Lewerentz ? Then, unexpectedly, Lewerentz was dropped the Woodland Cemetery lies in the tension
exact contemporary, fellow-student in rebellion, by the cemetery authority, and Asplund had the between Lewerentz's strict and tragic vision,
collaborator, rival. Neither wrote much, al? whole job to himself. The programme was en? and Asplund's sensuous manipulations.

thoughAsplund was, for some time, editor of larged to embrace twominor chapels. The result
Byggm?staren and, for the last ten years of his is a strange composition, inwhich these are set The dilemma
life, professor at the Royal Institute of Tech? back behind courtyards and the main chapel When Asplund died in 1940, at the age of fifty
nology inStockholm. Neither showed any inter? thrustsforward the famous impluvium portico. five, Alvar Aalto wrote: 'thefirst among Archi?
est in joining CIAM in itsprogramme of propa? This acts as theprimary focus for the ascending tects . . . has left us.' Aalto was never quick to

ganda, or inworking outside Sweden, or in pro? Way of the Cross leading up from the main en? praise, so this accolade is all themore remark?
jecting theirwork to an internationalaudience. trance. One paradoxical feature, the disengage? able when set against the baffled silence with
Their relation to the architectural revolution of ment of thisportico from thechapel itself, is not which the historians of our time have treated

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Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm, 1915-40. Perspective of1935 with neither cross nor
obelisk; perspective sketch with obelisk; and landscape as built, with cross.

Asplund. On the other hand, death robbed him to the ordering of a vast number of variables, and how faintly hinted in 1957, has now grown into a
(as itdid Duiker, Terragni and Bryggman) of the he does this is a question. There is no common theor? rival proposition. For those who have no con?
chance to deepen thegame during theperiod of etical agreement as to what happens or should happen viction of the existence of such a social reality,
post-war reconstruction ? the biggest building
at that point. There is a hiatus. One may even be jus? or the tenacity to draw itout of obscurity? for
tified in speaking of a 'missing architectural lan?
boom inhistory. Taking a cut-offpoint of fifty those, in other words, who do not feel the
guage'. Gropius has stated the difficulty as the lack of
a
five years of age, comparison could be made an 'optical key'... as an objective common denomin? authority of an authentic situation demanding
with Le Corbusier without any work from the ator of ? realization and commitment? there is the fall?
design something which would provide 'the
Unite onwards, orMies without any of his work back option: surrender to an existing authority.
impersonal basis as a prerequisite for general under?
in theUSA. standing', which would serve as 'the controlling agent
In Asplund's time that authoritywas the estab?
What is called for now is a much broader pre? within the creative act'. That is a precise description lished language of CIAM, the International
sentationof Asplund's work, particularly of the of the functions served by antiquity in the Classical Style. In our day, it is not somuch Summerson's
?
later, unbuilt projects Bromma Airport, centuries! The dilemma is really an enlargement of the
authorityof the ancients, as a return to the fold
flaw in mid-eighteenth-century
Stockholm Tower, Stockholm City Archive, ?
already apparent of the Beaux-Arts. Art for Art's Sake, Amen.
thatwhile antiquity was eliminated as an ab?
and above all the superbly orchestrated Stock? theory The attempt to invest this latterenterprisewith
solute, nothing was introduced which took its place as
holm social welfare complex. On the evidence the aura of authenticityhas drawn from J?rgen
a universally accredited language of architectural
so far available, these projects were developed form. The flaw seems now to have widened into a
Habermas the withering description of 'the
in considerable depth; they certainly belie any veritable dilemma. avant-garde of the reversed fronts'.

impression given by the bungalow at Stenn?s 'The Modern Movement has died many
thatAsplund was retreatingback intothewoods. This passage is important for two reasons. times', said Giancarlo de Carlo. We are at a
Of more general and topical concern is the First, itholds out a challenge to thosewho, like moment of great perplexity, and we certainly
need to expose the nature of a working theory Asplund, have the resources to take itup, of the cannot afford to throwaway any of the rare vic?
that grew from much reflection and self existence of authentic potential 'life-forms' that tories that have been won since the great
criticism, to produce a body of work whose can come intobeing poetically only if they can modernist venturewas launched. To look again,
excellent condition fiftyyears later is testimony be interpretedand embodied in thekind of nar? and hard, at the goals and their achievement in
enough to itsvalidity. The fundamentalground? rative depth central to Asplund's vision. The thework of Gunnar Asplund is both to criticize
ing of that theory, and its equally fundamental 'programme' conceived of here is not tobe con? thecritics and to liftthe spiritsa littleonce more.
vulnerability,were clearly exposed by the cen? fusedwith one of those exhaustive Alexandrian
tral argument of John Summerson's 1957 RIBA check-lists, though itwill, more likely thannot, Colin St JohnWilson
lecture, 'The Case for a Theory of Modern evolve itsgeneric form around a pattern of use.
Architecture': Where itdiffers from the remitof a functional
ism limited to thepragmatic fulfilmentof oper?
The programme as the source of unity is ... the one ations alone, is in the powers of interpretation
new principle involved inModern Architecture. The that set its patterns of use into the context of
crux of the whole matter . . . lies in the fact that the their historic type, expose their lineage, and
conceptions which arise from a preoccupation with comment on theirmeaning by overlaying an
analogous storyline, as Asplund proposes in the
the programme have got, at some point, to crystallize
into a final form and by the time the architect reaches This essay was first published in the catalogue of the
Stockholm Library, theWoodland Cemetery
thatpointhe has tobringtohis conceptiona weightof exhibition, 'Mega IX': Gunnar Asplund 1885-1940:
chapels, the Skandia Cinema and both of his A A Publications,
judgement, a sense of authority and conviction, which Law Courts. As to technical innovation, itwill
The Dilemma of Classicism. 1988.
clinches the whole design, causes the impending re? Text by Colin St JohnWilson and contemporary
lationships to close into a visually comprehensible
certainly not allow any existing rules of appreciations by Howard Robertson, Morton Shand
whole. He may have extracted from the programme a language to get in the jvay of its right to adopt and Gunnar Asplund. 273 X 343 mm., 48 pp., over
set of interdependent relationships adding up to a whatever advances in technology itdeems fit. 100 illustrations, including 12 drawings in colour.
unityof thebiological kind,buthe stillhas to faceup The alternative at which Summerson only Price ?30. ISBN 1-870890-08-6.

AA FILES 18
yj 93

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STOCKHOLM EXHIBITION, 1930

^^^^^ 11^

Aerial view (Nordiska Museum, Stockholm)

Mg/tf vtew (Architecture Museum, Stockholm)

94 A A FILES 18

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 Tranport pavilion (Architecture Museum, Stockholm)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^

* >^
^ Dance hall ^^^^
(F. R. Yerbury Archive, Architectural Association)
^^^^^ Transport ^fijjj pavilion (F. R. Yerbury Archive, Architectural Association)

95

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Paradiset restaurant (Architecture Museum, Stockholm)

96

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