The Symbolic Dimension between Nature and Artefact: the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm

The paper makes space for an interpretation of the celebrated Woodland Cemetery of Stockholm (designed by Erik Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, starting from 1914) intended as a total work of art able to create - working within the tension between nature and artefact - the utopia of a society based on the jämlikhet (equality), where every single man can re-define its role on the Earth. Crossing times, boundaries and ideological positions, the collective memory, evocated by the architectural and landscape design using signs belonging to the universal consciousness, re-builds the identity of the humanity to which this sacred place is dedicated. The aim of this architectural proposal is to define a precise experience of the space where men can accept death as a process inserted in the cyclical regeneration of the creation. In a place dominated by an insidious nature, the seeking of order shown by the design reveals the belonging of the individual to a superior plan. Thus, architecture is the mean to re-compose the unity of the world. In this powerful urban vision, the pursuit of the origins leads to the use of archetypes that allude to the relationship between the human and the divine. Since modern man has lost the ability to read the divine dimension directly and has needed to superimpose upon reality a system of signs which makes it recognisable once more, the architectural design is intended as a founding act capable of being rooted in the specificity of the place, while at the same time referencing absolute values. A myth-like significance resides in the nature and the construction of the landscape thus assumes an epic dimension. Starting from this consideration it is possible to shed light on the use of a compositional technique which chooses and builds architectural elements for their symbolic qualities. For instance, when the Cemetery Authority entrusted Lewerentz with the task of creating the second of the minor chapels, he decided to place a classical temple at the end of a long straight path cut out of the dark mass of forest. Such a declaration was clear enough: in a cemetery where all the tombs are equal and where they spread out as far as the trees themselves, the location of this rite should speak a universal language that everybody can recognise within the geographical extent of the place. In this way, the architect creates a hierophany.