The Death and Life of the Total Work of Art – Henry van de Velde and the Legacy of a Modern Concept

a moment of reflection before returning to daily life. The symbolic nature of the
individual elements is very strong, even the choice of the terms that define the individual
spaces as moments of a secular and universal liturgy. This project, for its
grace, simplicity, and the lyrical atmosphere that encompasses all the elements, has
assumed many of the characters that would soon become signs of recognition of the
experience of Nordic Classicism. 22
The Epiphany of the Sacred Place
The project by Lewerentz and Stubelius shows many affinities with the one that
would soon be conceived for the Chapel of the Resurrection 23 in the Woodland
Cemetery of Stockholm. Here Lewerentz envisioned a so-called chapel of passage,
meaning that the death is not an end point but rather a gateway toward a new dimension.
In the project for the Chapel of the Resurrection, the temple represented
the principal of order that was in a state of tension with the dark and changeable
face of nature. This tension between a craving for order and the uncontaminated
forest (the Urskog, representing the original background) produced an effect of
estrangement. Lewerentz decides to reveal the presence of the sacred place with
one single image, one icon: “from far away, in the middle of Nordic pinewood is
glimpsed a vision of a temple of classical antiquity, as a revelation and promise of
something rather more perfect, beyond the earthly.” 24
Going closer to the building, following the Way of the Seven Wells that connects
the Meditation Grove to the Chapel of the Resurrection, we discover that the image
of the temple is just a part of a more complex composition: the column-born
entrance hall is a free-standing enclosure from the chapel, and is placed slightly
diagonally in relation to it. That is, the image of the temple is a single word, isolated
and independent, which acts as a medium to create a tension across the itinerary. In
this way, Lewerentz creates two completely autonomous worlds: a volume defined
by a wall system and a hall based on a trilitic system. The whole building itself “acts
as the ‘gateway’ or ‘door’ between two realms” 25 and the entrance portal has a completely
different character from the exit passage. After the ceremony, the funeral
procession would continue through a door opposite to the entrance. The mourners
would not turn back on the same path by which they had come, but rather would
rejoin life through an unbroken sequence of movement.
125