John Håkansson

Architecture by Peter Celsing Photographed by John Håkansson

Peter Celsing (1920–74) belongs to the small group of Swedish modernist architects, including luminaries such as Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940) and Sigurd Lewerentz (1885–1975), who have rightly attracted attention even beyond the country's borders. The way in which Celsing approached and carried out his commissions testifies to a great understanding of architecture as an applied art, where function and economy are important parameters. At the same time, Celsing instilled aesthetic values of rank in his works. In a time of a major shift in the construction industry from more small-scale and artisanal to large-scale and prefabricated, Celsing managed the feat of running his projects with a high level of artistic integrity. This is an important reason why his architecture is perhaps even more interesting today than when it was created.

John Håkansson's black and white photographs, taken in the mid-1990s, capture the essence of Peter Celsing’s buildings. In many cases, the images are now a valuable document of that era, since some of the buildings have changed, and not always in a favourable way. In this beautiful volume, supplemented by insightful texts contributed by architect Staffan Henriksson and artist Maria Lantz, Håkansson's skillful photography forms a loving and sensitive portrait of Celsing's architecture.