665. Peter Celsing /// Villa Klockberga /// Drottningholm, Sweden /// 1966-69

The Swedish architect Peter Celsing (1920-74) is often mentioned in the same breath as Sigurd Lewerentz, mainly due to their shared appreciation of honest materials and skillful craftsmanship. And just like Lewerentz Celsing also traveled Italy, an experience that subcutaneously informed many of Celsing’s projects.

In the mid 1990s photographer John Håkansson, then still a student at the Stockholm Academy of Photography, was commissioned to photograph Celsing’s architecture all over Sweden for a planned publication on the architect. Unfortunately, the book didn’t materialize back then but thanks to Park Books finally saw the light of day very recently. „Architecture by Peter Celsing - Photographed by John Håkansson“, edited by the photographer himself, is a wonderfully „sachlich“ publication that captures the essence of Celsing’s architecture. Håkansson, influenced by the Düsseldorf School of Photography’s exponents Bernd & Hilla Becher, Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer, photographed Celsing’s buildings not in perfect conditions but in the bleak of winter, an approach that corresponds to the austerity and material beauty of the architecture. Accordingly, key projects like the Filmhuset, Kulturhuset and Riksbank in Stockholm, the Härland kyrka in Göteborg or the Tomas kyrka in Vällingby are documented in their special beauty. As Staffan Henriksson points out in his introduction to Peter Celsing, he was influenced not only by his study trips to Italy but also by Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel: although not immediately discernible on the surface, Le Corbusier’s use of lighting profoundly informed Celsing’s churches and his use of light. This aspect again is beautifully reflected in Håkansson’s photographs.