A TIMELESS ARCHITECTURE EXPRESSION OF NORDIC CLASSICISM
Extension of Liljevalchs Art Gallery
Wingårdhs
Liljevalch+ is a 2021 work by Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh, an extension of the homonym Konsthall, the Municipal art gallery realized in 1916 by Proto-Modernist architect Carl Bergsten on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm. The image of the original building is hanging in the balance between Art Nouveau and abstract Neoclassicism and consists of some well-proportioned building bodies, grouped in an elegant and harmonious rectangular-plan architecture. Gert Wingårdh’s architecture fully respects Carl Bergsten’s building, without turning down a precise identity and a contemporary image. The old art gallery keeps a figurative and functional primate, in addition to its role in hosting visitors from the main entrance of the complex. Instead, Liljevalch+ is a simple stereometric volume in exposed concrete, located on a secondary road. There is a precise repartition of roles between the two buildings, from a both visual and functional standpoint: indeed, the extension does not only contain the halls of permanent collections, but spaces for temporary exhibitions, a secondary entrance, various services, the bookshop and an expansion of Café Blå Porten.