Skogskyrkogarden

Skogskyrkogarden, the Woodland Cemetery, is a UNESCO site and a landmark of 20th-century architecture, where the designers Asplund and Lewerentz wove chapels, a great cross and a meditation grove into a pine forest to create a landscape of profound calm. Greta Garbo lies here, and the whole place is a study in how architecture can console.

History

In 1915 an international competition for a new cemetery at Enskede, south of central Stockholm, was won by the young architects Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz with an entry called Tallum, and work began in 1917 on old gravel pits overgrown with pines, the first phase opening in 1920. They drew on the German forest cemeteries of Hamburg and Munich and on the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, leading a route from the entrance past a great granite cross, which they insisted was open to non-Christian readings, to the chapels of Faith, Hope and the Holy Cross, and through the pines along the Way of Seven Wells to the Resurrection Chapel. Their design, moving from Nordic Classicism to mature functionalism, influenced cemetery design around the world, and in 1994 the cemetery became a World Heritage Site (Wikipedia, Skogskyrkogården).

The main sights

• The Woodland Chapel and crematorium - the restrained modernist buildings among the pines.
• The great granite cross - the stark cross on the open rise.
• The Meditation Grove - the hill of trees for quiet reflection.
• The forest setting - the graves set gently among the pine woods.

When to go

The snow-free months for walking the grounds; autumn adds colour and a fitting melancholy. It is a place for quiet reflection at any time.

Good to know

It is a working cemetery, so visit with respect and quiet rather than as a busy attraction. Its beauty is subtle and architectural, appreciated slowly rather than at a glance. It is out in the southern suburbs, reached by metro.

Nearby

Central Stockholm is a short metro ride; the southern districts spread around.

Key facts