A Love Story

I have always wondered what it would be like, to have known a place so well from books, and other peoples words, to have thought about it for so long, too long, and then to see it, smell it, feel it. You might wonder why I have not visited before, and you would be right to do so. Perhaps a lack of time, money, opportunity, or perhaps something more like a lover’s anxiety that when finally confronted by the object of their love the expected emotional bond is broken, precipitating sadness. Anxiety that in a moment filled with awkwardness, an imagined reality might slip irrevocably out of focus as it struggled to catch up with an imaginary ideal; an idea about a place, about architecture, that had been cherished, nurtured and most importantly, had survived. Last week, after many years of carefully removing books from bookshelves, scanning the dog-eared pages that had been devoured so pleasurably at various times in my life, at other times, unceremoniously abandoned as I was tempted by temporary distractions, I returned - not to the book, the photographic image, the architectural drawing, to the place itself, for the first time.

I was with a friend who knew it well. I did not feel comfortable betraying too much emotion. The feelings of anticipation built up with every step, my heart-beat increased and I was more than a little concerned that I might cry. We arrived at the threshold to the site where the perimeter walls turn inward. An aperture on the left hand side reveals a second layer of stone framed by four columns and an entablature set in front of the primary wall surface. When it rains or when the snow melts the inset stone wall weeps, literally and metaphorically. In this place tears are not obligatory, neither are they forgiven, they are welcomed. Following Lewerentz’ path, proceeding up a gentle slope, we are in a shallow ravine, a passage, an extended threshold that must be crossed. A crossing that leads to the Cross. Calvary. Asplund’s crematorium continues the line of the entrance wall to our left, but we turn to the right to climb a land-form that is more than a mound and less than a hill. A gently curving path leads to an unprecedented and extraordinary stair - as the rise of the stone treads reduces, the going increases, systematically. 

We reach the top.

There is a name for a cluster of deciduous trees on higher ground, Grove. But, in so many ways this is too small a word for Almh?jden, a square room bounded by stone walls, quite thick and a little bit higher than a seat, surrounded by trees with a low canopy. At this time of the year there is no foliage - I must return in the summer. In the centre there is a low circular bowl, a cauldron. I prefer to think of it as a crucible - an alchemical instrument, the fire-place in which materials are transformed and from which emotional states are conjured. The suspicion that I have held, suspended in time until I had this intimate encounter, that Skogskyrkog?rden’s mystery was forged in Pre-Christian Myth is released.

This room is a place for meditation, a place to remember, to reflect, a secular shrine. It is here that I am compelled to think about death, the deaths of friends and family, and my memory of them after life. Looking left, Asplund’s Crematorium, the Chapels, of Faith, Hope and The Holy Cross, ahead, graves among the trees, in the distance Lewerentz’ Uppst?ndelsekapellet, the Chapel of Resurrection. Two approaches to the after-life in what seemed to me at that moment, a stark contrast, absence and presence, literally. Two ways to return to the earth - cremated, ashes to ashes, anonymous, dust to dust, distributed. Or buried, occupying a void that will ultimately collapse under pressure, accepting and nourishing a multitude of insects and invertebrates - a complex tracery of information about a life is maintained, teeth and DNA intact. I was lost in introspection until the faintest gust of wind brought me back to contemplate the North-South alignment that joins the stair that I have climbed with the path that cuts through the dense woodland, The Seven Springs Way. 

We walk downhill. 

I need to hear the sound of the wind. I need to see the tops of the trees swaying, to hear the crunch of my footsteps and others on the gravel path. As if I am looking through a telescope from the wrong end, I need to take pleasure in the perspectival effect created by the Way. The horizon and imagined vanishing points vanish, as they should in a cemetery. What is already a considerable distance seems farther. The smell of the damp earth, the grass and the trees is intoxicating. The Pine trees are tall, the cutting narrow and, a surprise, the North Portico and the Chapel itself, much taller than expected. Suddenly, despite the sensation that I have been caught in an elastic, almost dimension-less dream-time, perspective collapses. We arrive. The Chapel is closed, but a small peep-hole in the West Door offers a glimpse of the interior, washed with southern light, somehow sharply defined and diffuse at the same time, white and grey, warm and cold, bright and shaded, melancholic but serene. Around the hole, the acid etched imprint of countless cheeks, noses and foreheads, of faces pressed against the metal - a cyclopean portrait that is a register of collective curiosity, determination and desire. Walking around the building, I draw my hand across its stucco surfaces, I need to touch it, to feel it, if I could hold it I would. Reaching the corner, I let go.

to be continued...