Erik Gunnar Asplund

Asplund was born in Stockholm. He trained as a painter and then studied architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and became a committed modernist. His early work was modernist but he tended to Nordic classicism. This gave him a profound interest in the symbolic aspects of the Swedish landscape and the commission for Skogskyrkogarden Woodland Crematorium provided an opportunity to develop this interest over many decades.