27 October 2008
Dreaming Lewerentz
I dreamed about Lewerentz last night. I finally got to meet him and he was very large and quite old. He showed me his house and we walked up a hill together to meet some people who had gathered to hear him sing. There was much excitement and everyone was so pleased to see him. He sang a beautiful Italian song and then wandered back out into the afternoon. We waited with anticipation for his final song but he didn’t return. I set out to look for him and imagined that he felt he had already sung his last song and had gone home to die. I went to his house and walked quietly among the rooms. Half-open dark grey doors, wooden floors, tall windows and a silhouetted rocker…I recalled him sweetly and let the melancholy of his passing slowly seep into me. “What are you doing here?” he asked, startling me out of my sadness. I was embarrassed—happy to see him alive, but very embarrassed. I tried to explain that I’d come looking for him and he assured me that he’d just come home for a break and had every intention of returning. He found me impatient. Just then his wife appeared in a state of semi-undress in the doorway of their room.
16 October 2008
I had the best day today.
October 13, 2008
I set out early this morning for Valdemarsvik. I went to visit their cemetery which was designed by Sigurd Lewerentz in 1914. I’d been once before a couple of year ago. It was early November and I’d arrived with little more than an hour of daylight. I remember trying to move quickly and my haste did nothing to dampen the impact of this remarkable site. I watched the full moon rise over the chapel’s spire-roof and then departed reluctantly, shrouded in the early northern shadows. I took the last bus to the last train and landed in my rented room feeling tired and lucky.
I had several delayed realizations about the site, which were verified by the photos I’d taken and I confidently wove them into papers and presented them at conferences.
My visit today was much different. It’s not as late in the year and I arrived early. I have three days this time so there is no sense of urgency. I’d read that Lewerentz had been influenced by Bronze Age burial mounds found near the site and I’d located them in his proposal for the cemetery. I wandered up into the forest above the cemetery to have lunch and I stumbled upon them immediately. The Bronze Age in Europe was roughly from 2000 to 600 BC and in spite of thousands of years of overgrowth they were unmistakable.
I remember following a hand drawn map many years ago to the ruins of an old church in Doolin, Ireland. There were graves inside as well as out and the stone ruins, now deep in green grass, rocked and wobbled as I slowly made my way through them. The profound sense of reverence I felt then struck me again today as I crept toward the mounds. I don’t know if it’s the visceral sense of so much time or if it’s socially constructed or perhaps a fundamental aspect of being human, but it is absolutely halting to walk on hallowed ground.
I took my time today walking through the cemetery and by the time I’d made my way to the bottom children began trickling through on their way home from school. A path half-lined with evergreens cuts through the cemetery and connects the school on one side with a residential area on the other. I’d theorized that Lewerentz had organized the cemetery along two perpendicular axes; this transverse path of the living and the much longer path of the dead running the cemetery’s entire length. The evergreens lining the short path stood out against the brilliant yellow of the lindens that ran in perfect lines along the long path. As I turned around and walked back toward the chapel I was puzzled by a jog midway along the northern border. I’d brought a copy of Lewerentz’s proposal with me this time and I suddenly realized that the cemetery had been expanded. The plantings that bordered the addition, that tight row of evergreens, came much later. My brilliant and by now published reading of the cemetery was wrong. Lewerentz hadn’t intended them at all, they were coincidental, an inadvertent product of a later intervention directed at an unrelated intention.
As this new reality set in it did nothing to diminish the experience I'd had the first time I visited the site. Did it matter who had made or intended the scenario I experienced? Did it matter that no one had intended it; that it was mere happenstance? In spite of being wrong I couldn’t efface that initial experience and I was just as pleased with today’s detective work even though it left my interpretation in tatters. I sketched for a while before boarding the bus back to Norrköping and smiled with the sparkling Swedish autumn all the way home.
I set out early this morning for Valdemarsvik. I went to visit their cemetery which was designed by Sigurd Lewerentz in 1914. I’d been once before a couple of year ago. It was early November and I’d arrived with little more than an hour of daylight. I remember trying to move quickly and my haste did nothing to dampen the impact of this remarkable site. I watched the full moon rise over the chapel’s spire-roof and then departed reluctantly, shrouded in the early northern shadows. I took the last bus to the last train and landed in my rented room feeling tired and lucky.
I had several delayed realizations about the site, which were verified by the photos I’d taken and I confidently wove them into papers and presented them at conferences.
My visit today was much different. It’s not as late in the year and I arrived early. I have three days this time so there is no sense of urgency. I’d read that Lewerentz had been influenced by Bronze Age burial mounds found near the site and I’d located them in his proposal for the cemetery. I wandered up into the forest above the cemetery to have lunch and I stumbled upon them immediately. The Bronze Age in Europe was roughly from 2000 to 600 BC and in spite of thousands of years of overgrowth they were unmistakable.
I remember following a hand drawn map many years ago to the ruins of an old church in Doolin, Ireland. There were graves inside as well as out and the stone ruins, now deep in green grass, rocked and wobbled as I slowly made my way through them. The profound sense of reverence I felt then struck me again today as I crept toward the mounds. I don’t know if it’s the visceral sense of so much time or if it’s socially constructed or perhaps a fundamental aspect of being human, but it is absolutely halting to walk on hallowed ground.
I took my time today walking through the cemetery and by the time I’d made my way to the bottom children began trickling through on their way home from school. A path half-lined with evergreens cuts through the cemetery and connects the school on one side with a residential area on the other. I’d theorized that Lewerentz had organized the cemetery along two perpendicular axes; this transverse path of the living and the much longer path of the dead running the cemetery’s entire length. The evergreens lining the short path stood out against the brilliant yellow of the lindens that ran in perfect lines along the long path. As I turned around and walked back toward the chapel I was puzzled by a jog midway along the northern border. I’d brought a copy of Lewerentz’s proposal with me this time and I suddenly realized that the cemetery had been expanded. The plantings that bordered the addition, that tight row of evergreens, came much later. My brilliant and by now published reading of the cemetery was wrong. Lewerentz hadn’t intended them at all, they were coincidental, an inadvertent product of a later intervention directed at an unrelated intention.
As this new reality set in it did nothing to diminish the experience I'd had the first time I visited the site. Did it matter who had made or intended the scenario I experienced? Did it matter that no one had intended it; that it was mere happenstance? In spite of being wrong I couldn’t efface that initial experience and I was just as pleased with today’s detective work even though it left my interpretation in tatters. I sketched for a while before boarding the bus back to Norrköping and smiled with the sparkling Swedish autumn all the way home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
