The Most Striking Architectural Experience in Stockholm: Returning to the Primitive Instinct of Dwelling within Lewerentz's Silence and Shadows

“During overpowering emotional experiences, we tend to close off the distancing sense of vision; we close the eyes when dreaming, listening to music, or caressing our beloved ones. Deep shadows and darkness are essential, because they dim the sharpness of vision, make depth and distance ambiguous, and invite unconscious peripheral vision and tactile fantasy.” — Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses

On October 9, 2024, on the same day we visited the Woodland Cemetery, we also visited Markuskyrkan, or St. Mark's Church, designed by Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz in the nearby suburb of Björkhagen. We had originally planned to visit Gunnar Asplund's Stockholm Public Library as well, but unfortunately, it happened to be closed for renovation. As a result, St. Mark's Church became the most profound and striking architectural experience of our time in Stockholm.

Markuskyrkan is one of the two canonical churches designed by Sigurd Lewerentz in the later period of his life. Both represent the culmination of ideas refined throughout his entire architectural career. Through a critical engagement with the currents of modern architecture, Lewerentz developed an extraordinary ability to articulate a profound understanding of art while expressing a distinctly local spirit of place. The result is an architecture of powerful atmosphere and human character, distinguished by its highly attentive responses to site, material, and detail.

As early as the competition stage, Lewerentz distinguished himself with an exceptional approach to the site and was awarded first place. The invited competition involved five architects, including Hans Asplund, son of Gunnar Asplund, and Peter Celsing. During construction, Lewerentz, already in his seventies, maintained a remarkable presence on site, personally overseeing the work and guiding the craftsmen. He insisted on a handmade approach to bricklaying in which bricks were not cut, while drawing upon his long experience with architectural metalwork and carpentry to develop the intricate construction of doors, windows, and roof elements. Through these details, he achieved a remarkable continuity and integrity throughout the architecture, making Markuskyrkan one of the most distinctive brick buildings of the twentieth century.

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The church features exceptionally refined detailing throughout its windows, roof elements, and drainage system. The drainage components are particularly noteworthy, incorporating a variety of forms and ingenious design solutions.

More than its brickwork and meticulous treatment of materials and details, what remains most unforgettable about St. Mark's Church is its dark, almost cave-like interior. The spatial narrative developed decades earlier in the Resurrection Chapel at the Woodland Cemetery can be felt here once again, while Lewerentz's exploration of architectural language over more than a decade since his proposal for the Eastern Cemetery in Malmö also seems to converge in this work. Ultimately, with little more than subtle variations of light and shadow, he creates a dramatic transformation in bodily perception. The predominantly dark atmosphere intensifies the mystery and sacredness of the space, as each step taken toward faith seems to lead gradually toward the light.

Upon entering the chapel, the initial impression is one of profound darkness. Only after the eyes gradually adjust to the low light do the contours of the space begin to emerge.

In The Eyes of the Skin, Finnish architectural scholar Juhani Pallasmaa discusses the importance of shadow in shaping our bodily perception and behavior within space. In In Praise of Shadows, the Japanese writer Jun'ichirō Tanizaki describes a pre-modern aesthetic consciousness in which shadow was deeply intertwined with everyday life and the natural world. For me, too, darkness in a cave-like space seems to awaken something deeply rooted in the human condition—a primitive instinct and memory of dwelling within nature.

Although Lewerentz himself was a reserved figure who never published theoretical writings or delivered lectures, the relatively small body of work he left behind reveals what architecture, in its most fundamental sense, needs to embody: solidity, utility, and beauty. Beyond these essential qualities, however, his architecture also engages deeply with the spirit of place, paying close attention to the bodily and sensory exploration that takes place through the experience of inhabiting a space.

Seen from the present day, this quality remains remarkably powerful. It possesses an aesthetic character that seems almost untouched by time, continuing to provoke reflection on what architecture can be when it is experienced not merely through the eyes, but through the whole body.