James Taylor-Foster
Selected writing 2015 – 2022
  • About
  • Category
  • Title
  • Publication
  • Year
  • Curatorial
  • Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson; Sigurd Lewerentz – Freestanding
  • 2018
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2022
  • Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson; Sigurd Lewerentz – Freestanding

In response to the explosion of international interest and research surrounding Sigurd Lewerentz (1885-1975), Sweden’s most renowned 20th Century architect, Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson presents Freestanding – an exhibition in the Central Pavilion at Freespace, the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Sigurd Lewerentz’s chapels are marked by an extraordinary imaginative synthesis of northern aesthetic traditions and burial practices in the context of a modernising world. He wrote and spoke little but in recent years his work has gripped the imaginations of a generation of architects who look to it for its power, symbolic range, and its poetic, experiential qualities.

Freestanding focuses on three canopies from three of Lewerentz’s most famous religious buildings: the Chapel of the Resurrection at the Woodland Cemetery (1925), Stockholm; the Chapels of St. Knut and St. Gertrud at the Eastern Cemetery, Malmö (1943); and St. Mark’s Church at Björkhagen, Stockholm (1960). Simple in form, these canopies are central to the ritual meaning of the buildings they correspond to, contributing significantly to the visual image of the churches they accompany. The three structures were completed across the span of Lewerentz’s career, each designed in a different architectural style to one another. Despite this stylistic diversity, they all create places for public life between the scales of the landscape and the interior.

Through drawings, photography, and large-scale models, Freestanding unfolds the spatial power of the canopies in the form of a three-act play: an inhabitable, sectional scenography and a fabric of experiences that suggest ways in which extra spatial gifts can form the heart of the experience of a place, a ritual, and a landscape.

Swedish architect Petra Gipp has designed three large-scale section models which allow for a unique reading of the canopies – how they make a place for people between the breadth of a landscape and the massiveness of a building. Gipp’s models are abstractions, suppressing scale and material in favour of spatial effects.

New photographs taken by Swedish artist Mikael Olsson show the three projects as living, contemporary scenographies. In dissecting and rearranging the structures and their surroundings, the photographs reveal new perspectives on their design. The pictures evoke movement and help to reveal how we perceive distance and intimacy through architectural gestures.

Sigurd Lewerentz’s drawings on display in Freestanding have never before been shown together. As a sequence, they help to establish the spatial narratives of the canopies, collectively and alone: perspectives that show how they mediate their respective landscapes and interiors, alongside plans, elevations and detail drawings that show the diagrammatic composition of these outdoor spaces and their relationship to the main body of the buildings.



See the exhibition at arkdes.se


Participants Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson Collaborators Claudia Ortigas, Mateo Eiletz with Marica Petkovic Supporter ArkDes for FREESPACE (16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia)
May 26 — November 25, 2018
Room 12, Central Pavilion,
Giardini della Biennale, Venice
Selected Press ArchDaily, e-flux Architecture, The Guardian, Drawing Matter, Financial Times, Metropolis





Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death of Life opened at ArkDes in 2021 alongside a major new publication dedicated to the work and life of the architect.


Fig 1. The exhibition Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life at ArkDes, Stockholm. © Johan Dehlin (2021)

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James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
  • CuratorialI.
  • ProjectsII.
  • PublicationsIII.
  • SpeakingIV.
  • WritingV.
I.Curatorial
  • ✶ WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, London2022
  • ✶ Mira Bergh × Josefin Zachrisson: Utomhusverket2022
  • ✶ The Limits of Our World: LARP and Design2022
  • ✶ Solicited: Proposals2021
  • ✶ Studio Ossidiana: Utomhusverket2021
  • WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, Stockholm2020
  • Architecture Projects: Skeppsbron + Brunnsparken2019
  • Cruising Pavilion: Architecture, Gay Sex, Cruising Culture2019
  • The Craft of Swedish Videogame Design2019
  • Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson; Sigurd Lewerentz – Freestanding2018
  • Space Popular: Value in the Virtual2018
  • You Are Not Alone2017
  • In Therapy2016
  • Keeping Up Appearances2015
II.Projects
  • ASMR, An Exhibition Trailer2022
  • Watch & Chill 2.0: Streaming Senses2022
  • ASMRology2021
  • Plug-in Poesi2020
  • ✶ Interdependence: Stockholm and pandemia2020
  • Future Architecture Rooms2020
  • SOFT GOSSIP2020
  • Mukbang Veneziano2020
  • Körper2019
  • Architecture on Display2018
  • Boxen at ArkDes2018
  • The Stones of Venice: A Kimono2017
  • Misunderstandings (A Reliquary)2016
III.Publications
  • ✶ softspot2021
  • Living on Water2017
  • Elemental Living2016
  • People, Place, Purpose2015
IV.Speaking
  • ✶ Scaffold #612022
  • Salons, The New Architecture School2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: A Bed2022
  • OAT Academy, Curating Architecture2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: An Island2021
  • A Future for Exhibitions2021
  • Future Architecture CEx2020 Focus Talks2020
  • Modevisningar är den flyktigaste formen av arkitektur2018
  • Exhibition Models2017
V.Writing
  • Studio Ossidiana on the Sentimental Scale of the City2022
  • Wang & Söderström: Royal Chambers2022
  • A Strange Sort of Weight2021
  • What’s Mine Is Theirs: an interview with Max Lamb2020
  • ✶ Screen Glow Sedation2020
  • No Time to Stand and Stare2020
  • On Norra Tornen2020
  • ✶ Don’t Fear a Snowflake2020
  • In Riga, A Conference On Architecture and Migration2019
  • On Practical Futurology2019
  • Foreword: On the Manifesto2019
  • Making Believe with Charlap Hyman & Herrero2019
  • ✶ To Speak As If In Capital Letters2019
  • Baltoscandia: A Complex Utopia2018
  • ✶ Virgil Abloh, Editor in Brief2018
  • A Weak Monument2018
  • Sigurd Lewerentz: Villa Edstrand2018
  • On the Cruising Pavilion2018
  • A Diary of Virgil Abloh’s First Louis Vuitton Show2018
  • ✶ The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied.2018
  • Concrete Mountain2017
  • ✶ On Liquid Modernity2017
  • ✶ #003399, #FFCC00; The Meaning of a Flag2017
  • Pillars of Society: “Jantelagen”2017
  • Exhibiting the Postmodern2017
  • Future Architecture and the Idea of Europe2017
  • Domains of Influence2017
  • Ingress: Black Rock City2017
  • In Dialogue With Gravity2017
  • Rem, Redacted2016
  • Media States, Or The State of Media2016
  • A Piece of England to Call One’s Own2016
  • Upon This Rock (I Will Build My Church)2016
  • The Design of the Species2016
  • Venice Isn’t Sinking, It’s Flooding2016
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2022
Curatorial
  • Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson; Sigurd Lewerentz – Freestanding 2018
  • for the 16th Biennale Architettura di Venezia ("FREESPACE")
Back

In response to the explosion of international interest and research surrounding Sigurd Lewerentz (1885-1975), Sweden’s most renowned 20th Century architect, Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson presents Freestanding – an exhibition in the Central Pavilion at Freespace, the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Sigurd Lewerentz’s chapels are marked by an extraordinary imaginative synthesis of northern aesthetic traditions and burial practices in the context of a modernising world. He wrote and spoke little but in recent years his work has gripped the imaginations of a generation of architects who look to it for its power, symbolic range, and its poetic, experiential qualities.

Freestanding focuses on three canopies from three of Lewerentz’s most famous religious buildings: the Chapel of the Resurrection at the Woodland Cemetery (1925), Stockholm; the Chapels of St. Knut and St. Gertrud at the Eastern Cemetery, Malmö (1943); and St. Mark’s Church at Björkhagen, Stockholm (1960). Simple in form, these canopies are central to the ritual meaning of the buildings they correspond to, contributing significantly to the visual image of the churches they accompany. The three structures were completed across the span of Lewerentz’s career, each designed in a different architectural style to one another. Despite this stylistic diversity, they all create places for public life between the scales of the landscape and the interior.

Through drawings, photography, and large-scale models, Freestanding unfolds the spatial power of the canopies in the form of a three-act play: an inhabitable, sectional scenography and a fabric of experiences that suggest ways in which extra spatial gifts can form the heart of the experience of a place, a ritual, and a landscape.

Swedish architect Petra Gipp has designed three large-scale section models which allow for a unique reading of the canopies – how they make a place for people between the breadth of a landscape and the massiveness of a building. Gipp’s models are abstractions, suppressing scale and material in favour of spatial effects.

New photographs taken by Swedish artist Mikael Olsson show the three projects as living, contemporary scenographies. In dissecting and rearranging the structures and their surroundings, the photographs reveal new perspectives on their design. The pictures evoke movement and help to reveal how we perceive distance and intimacy through architectural gestures.

Sigurd Lewerentz’s drawings on display in Freestanding have never before been shown together. As a sequence, they help to establish the spatial narratives of the canopies, collectively and alone: perspectives that show how they mediate their respective landscapes and interiors, alongside plans, elevations and detail drawings that show the diagrammatic composition of these outdoor spaces and their relationship to the main body of the buildings.



See the exhibition at arkdes.se


Participants Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson Collaborators Claudia Ortigas, Mateo Eiletz with Marica Petkovic Supporter ArkDes for FREESPACE (16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia)
May 26 — November 25, 2018
Room 12, Central Pavilion,
Giardini della Biennale, Venice
Selected Press ArchDaily, e-flux Architecture, The Guardian, Drawing Matter, Financial Times, Metropolis





Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death of Life opened at ArkDes in 2021 alongside a major new publication dedicated to the work and life of the architect.


Fig 1. The exhibition Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life at ArkDes, Stockholm. © Johan Dehlin (2021)

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