The landscape

Although Sigurd Lewerentz and Gunnar Asplund shaped Skogskyrkogården together, the landscaping was primarily the preserve of Lewerentz.

The landscaping is unique and utterly unlike other cemeteries of the age, which often had grandiose tree-lined avenues and impressive headstones raising a kind of memento to the dead. Skogskyrkogården is, instead, clearly influenced by the spirit of the times – Swedish romanticism with gentle hills, space and openness.

The beautiful natural features are carefully designed to offer healing to mourners. Nature guides visitors through the funeral ceremony and then gradually back into their own lives again – a unity that echoes the eternal cycle of life and death

Lewerentz also worked to imbue the landscape with plenty of contrasts: hills and dips, dark and light and contrasting plants. Designing the cemetery to encompass the various contrasts of nature was also one of the criteria specified in the architects’ competition that Lewerentz and Asplund won in 1915.

On the following pages you can read more about the different parts of the Skogskyrkogården landscape.