Gunnar Asplund’s Gothenburg: The Transformation of Public Architecture in Interwar Europe by Nicholas Adams (review)

In the years between 1934 and 1936, the Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940) designed and built an extension to an old courthouse in the main square of Gothenburg. In this seemingly simple feat of construction, Asplund—often credited for helping to usher functionalism into Nordic architecture and design through his groundbreaking work on the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930—erected one of the most significant examples of European modernism. In this enlightening and exhaustive study of that singular structure, Nicholas Adams achieves his own feat of construction by placing Asplund’s extension into a broader historiography of mid-twentieth-century modernism and by contextualizing the building’s reception and effect upon the development of attitudes about modernist architecture. That a scholar could write an entire study on one building’s extension, and hold the reader’s interest so intently throughout the process, is its own singular achievement.

Adams’s first bit of contextualizing is his wisest: an introduction on “Public Architecture in the Modern World,” in which he peers closely into the notion of monumentality and its myriad meanings for various societies. In a Swedish context, this path leads Adams to the historian and critic Gregor Paulsson, another mover and shaker in the Stockholm Exhibition, and a highly influential design rhetorician, who brought the concerns of the German Werkbund to bear on developments in modernist design and architecture. Adams notes: “Though there were many other stylistic avenues away from the conventional historicism of the nineteenth century, the Werkbund was a well-traveled route toward modernity for architects from northern Europe and a significant resting place for those wanting to make a modern public architecture” (p. 3). Adams then establishes a format in which he dissects the manner in which Asplund changed his addition from conception to construction, along with the way history altered rapidly in the interwar years (and, with it, critics’ and the public’s response to the productions of modernist design and architecture). This approach is a sagacious one, avoiding the pursuit of one avenue and one explanation for this monumental structure and its horizon of reception. Adams also discusses the political ramifications of Asplund’s courthouse addition, particularly in light of its attachment to ideas about Swedish Social Democracy. As Adams observes, Asplund’s extension “spoke to visitors of the fundamental political, legal, and architectural values of contemporary society” (p. 7). Looking at the illustration accompanying this claim, a photograph of the Gothenburg Courthouse’s interior hall, one immediately notices certain aspects of modernist design: the open design reflecting the broad use of public space; the exposed pillars (here, twin beams) elevating floors and adding to the modernist affection for floating planes; the curved surface of the balcony wall of the second story facing the central hall—a pattern Asplund had exploited to profound effect in his buildings for the Stockholm Exhibition and which he repeated in the courthouse, as in the view of courtroom E that appears on page 102; the zigzag open staircase that attracted the attention of such other Nordic modern architects as Arne Jacobsen (who used it to striking effect in the hallway of Denmark’s Nationalbank, 1961–1972).

An intricate study of Asplund’s multiple visions for the extension, accompanied by excellent illustrations, answers the question: “What was Asplund trying to achieve in these designs?” More importantly, as Asplund’s plans for Gustaf Adolf Square (adjacent to the eighteenth-century courthouse) developed over a surprising 25-year period, they also changed in focus and approach. Adams sees reflections of different theoretical influences on Asplund’s shifting vision, including the thoughts of such figures as the Austrians Camillo Sitte and Otto Wagner. In the summer of 1920, Asplund and the librarian Frederik Hjelmqvist toured libraries in the United States, partially in preparation for the architect’s work on the Stockholm Public Library (1924–1928), a tour that Adams views as abetting Asplund’s conception of modernism as...