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for Ferdinand Boberg
Ferdinand Boberg
Dutch, 1566 - 1651
Swedish architect, draughtsman and painter. After studying at the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan and the Kungliga Akademien för de fria Konsterna (1878–84), with his artist-wife Anna Boberg (b 1864) he made extensive journeys in Italy, France, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean region, also visiting Britain. Early on he was impressed by the work of H. H. Richardson, and this was reinforced by his visit to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893) and to the studio of Louis Sullivan. Boberg’s highly personal style amalgamated these American influences with impressions from Italy, Spain and North Africa, and his ornamentation in particular is connected both to Sullivan and to the Moorish and Byzantine. Gävle Fire Station (1890) shows clearly the Richardsonian use of the Romanesque with round-arched doorways in heavy granite, picturesque asymmetry and colonette motifs. Industrial buildings for the Stockholm Gas and Electricity Works in the 1890s demonstrate Boberg’s effective use of colourful brick and stone. The surviving portal of an electricity station (destr.) in central Stockholm is decorated by ornamentation of electric light-bulbs with a Sullivanesque sharpness, and postal motifs of a similar nature adorn the Central Post Office (1898–1905), Stockholm. Boberg designed the architecture for several large exhibitions (e.g. the Stockholm Exhibitions of 1897 and 1909, and the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö in 1914). The pavilions were always rich in surface decoration, like many of his buildings, for example the Rosenbad office, bank and restaurant complex (1900; now Government headquarters), a series of princely villas on Djurgården, all in Stockholm, and the unexecuted project for a Nobel Festivity Hall (1912). Plain, white plaster surfaces inlaid in parts with colourful tiles dominate the symmetrical front of the Thielska Galleriet (1904) in Djurgården, a combined residence and picture gallery with toplighting. Boberg’s later production has a more heavy massing, usually in dark brick and granite (e.g. Malmö Post Office, 1905, and Saltsjöbaden Church, 1913). Also in granite are the façades of the Nordiska Kompaniet department store (1912) in Stockholm, which otherwise is a steel structure with a grand toplit hall. Boberg was a skilful draughtsman, watercolourist and etcher, and from 1914 on he devoted his efforts to the documentation of the Swedish architectural and industrial heritage in sketches, often in charcoal or crayon. In this capacity he was a representative of National Romanticism and its striving to capture the atmosphere of past centuries. His designs for furniture and other items demonstrate his preference for graphic effects and quasi-filigree patterning in a style similar to Art Nouveau.
"Boberg, Ferdinand." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T009419 (accessed May 3, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
Swedish, active in America, 1928 - 1976