Translations [6]: a public lecture by Johan Celsing News from the School of Art, Architecture and Design

A Stone in the Forest Intentions in the design of the New Crematorium at the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm.

Date: 29 April 2013

Woodland Crematorium II, Stockholm, Sweden

"A Stone in the Forest is the entry which best understands the wholeness of the Woodland Cemetery and listens to the site with the greatest empathy. The project adds one more character-laden part to the Woodland Cemetery experience. A Stone in the Forest creates a journey in both an internal and an external landscape.

The proposal merges with the Woodland Cemetery’s distinctive array of buildings without repeating, imitating or even alluding to earlier buildings. It is sui generis, characterised by a refined simplicity, a down-toearth feeling of form, colour and weight, with an architecture verging on the ascetic.

In A Stone in the Forest, the approach to the building is subdued, almost hesitant. The forest has been made part of the experience. The building lies secretive and compact, barely discernible from the forecourt. The approach to the crematory building has been given a soft-spoken setting which accords with the general ambience of the Woodland Cemetery. The short journey through the woods is in this way reminiscent of the journey to the Woodland Chapel. A Stone in the Forest is a scheme which highlights the gentle values and, accordingly, the scheme which succeeded best in finding its own key in the composite voicing of the original work."

Quotation from the competition jury assessment (2009)

Date & Time
Monday 29 April, 18:30pm

Venue
The Boulevard, 4th Floor, Central House 59-63. Whitechapel High Street

Biography

Johan Celsing was born in Stockholm in 1955. He studied architecture at The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and painting at Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris. Celsing is professor of Advanced Design at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Major work includes: Nobel Forum, Stockholm (1994). Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala (1997). Millesgarden Art Gallery, Stockholm (1999). The University College of Teachers, Stockholm (2001). Museum of Sketches, Lund (2004). The Bonnier Building, Stockholm (2006), New Domicile for the Swedish Antiquarian Agency, Visby (2008). Church at Årsta (2011).

Current work includes the New Crematorium, under construction, at the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm which is the result of an international competition by invitation in 2009. The Crematorium will be completed in 2013. Other current work includes a mosque in Stockholm and alterations and extensions of the University Library and other Institutions in Uppsala.