Il tempio e il tumulo. La dimensione sacra del paesaggio nell’architettura di Sigurd Lewerentz

The Temple and the Burial Mound. Landscape’s Holy Dimension in the Architecture of Sigurd Lewerentz. Since antiquity, Nordic culture - split between the awareness of a superior design and the presence of an inhospitable nature - has been founded on the idea that the existence of the specific spirit of each place ensures a deep connection between Man and Earth. Modern Man, however, has lost the ability to read this divine dimension directly and has needed therefore to superimpose upon reality a system of signs which makes it recognisable once more. During the first few decades of the Twentieth century, this unresolved tension towards the foreboding divinity became the fundamental crux when it was necessary to reflect upon the subject of the Sacred; reflections that shifted between Christian and pagan dimensions, between the classical spirit and the archaic sphere, between a closeness with Old Norse and yet a faith in the new ideals of social democracy. These conceptions lived side by side in a sentiment of reality that was understood as a symbolic expression of the divine. A myth-like significance resides in nature and the construction of the landscape - a sensitive setting for human events - thus assumes an epic dimension. In the project for the Chapel of Resurrection, the temple represented the principal of order that was in a state of tension with the dark and changeable face of nature. This tension between a craving for order (embodied by the classical pronàon) and yet finding itself rooted to the actual place (the uncontaminated forest, the Urskog, representing the original background) produced an effect of estrangement.