Johan Fredrik Lilljekvist (Stockholm 8 October 1863 - Stockholm 18 December 1932) was a Swedish architect. He is best known for his controversial restoration of Gripsholm Castle

Gripsholm Castle

Gripsholm Castle is a castle in Mariefred, Södermanland, in Sweden and is regarded as one of Sweden's finest historical monuments. It is located by lake Mälaren in south central Sweden, in the municipality of Strängnäs, about 60 km west of Stockholm....

 and as the architect of the new building for the Royal Dramatic Theatre

Royal Dramatic Theatre

The Royal Dramatic Theatre is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's eight running stages....

 in Stockholm.

Life in summary

Lilljekvist was born in Klara parish in Stockholm, son of a photographer. He studied architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology

Royal Institute of Technology

The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is one of Scandinavia's largest institutions of higher education in technology. KTH accounts for one-third of Sweden’s technical research and engineering education...

, where he graduated in 1884, and at the Royal Academy of Arts

Royal Swedish Academy of Arts

The Royal Swedish Academy of Arts or Kungl. Akademien för de fria konsterna, founded in 1773 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...

 1884-1887. He worked as an architect in Stockholm from 1888, and was appointed castle architect at Gripsholm in 1895. During the latter part of his life he was active as an urban planner; he was employed in the Överintendentämbetet, later the National Board of Public Building (Byggnadsstyrelsen, now Statens Fastighetsverk), where he served as a byggnadsråd (building councillor) and department head from 1918 until 1930.

The restoration of Gripsholm

During his time at the Academy, Lilljekvist worked with the art historian Gustaf Upmark in documenting Gripsholm Castle. On his own initiative, he made a restoration plan for the Castle that was shown at the spring exhibition of the Academy in 1888. He continued to work on the plans the following years and when he was appointed head of the restoration work at Gripsholm, these plans were used in a modified form. His plans were influenced by the restoration ideology of Viollet-le-Duc

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect.-Early years:...

, according to which a building should be restored to its original style and to the state in which its originators would have wanted to see it. The main representative of this school in Sweden was Helgo Zettervall

Helgo Zettervall

Helgo Nikolaus Zettervall, older spelling Zetterwall, was a Swedish architect and professor of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts...

. In this case the ideal was the Renaissance architecture

Renaissance architecture

Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...

 of the early Vasa period (1523-1611). An opposing ideology that would eventually come to dominance in Sweden in the early 20th century was to restore buildings in a way that showed respect for its entire history. Lilljekvist's work was severely criticized in an article in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter

Dagens Nyheter

is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It has the largest circulation of Swedish morning newspapers, followed by Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet, and is the only morning newspaper that is distributed to subscribers across the whole country. In 2009 DN had a circulation of 316,000, reaching 881...

by the writer Verner von Heidenstam

Verner von Heidenstam

Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam was a Swedish poet and novelist, a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1916. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1912...

, who suggested that a sign should be put at the Castle saying in mock-archaic Swedish, that "An̄o Domini 1893 gjordes detta gambla hus ændnu gamblare" ("An̄o Domini 1893 this old House was made even older"). Lilljekvist later worked on the less radical restoration of Strängnäs Cathedral

Strängnäs Cathedral

Strängnäs Cathedral is a cathedral church in Strängnäs, Sweden, since the Protestant Reformation the seat of the Lutheran Diocese of Strängnäs.It is built mainly of bricks in the characteristic Scandinavian Brick Gothic style...

 together with Sigurd Curman, a representative of the new ideals.

New buildings in the 1890s

Many of his new buildings during the 1890s and the years around the turn of the century were designed in a style influenced by renaissance or baroque architecture. He was one of the architects of the new affluent suburb of Djursholm

Djursholm

Djursholm is one of four suburban districts in, and the seat of Danderyd Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden. Djursholm is included in the multi-municipal Stockholm urban area.-History:...

, where he built a chapel and several private villas, including one for himself. For the General Art and Industrial Exposition of Stockholm (1897)

General Art and Industrial Exposition of Stockholm (1897)

The General Art and Industrial Exposition of Stockholm of 1897 also known as Stockholm Exhibition or Stockholm World's Fair was a World's Fair staged in 1897 in Stockholm, Sweden....

, Lilljekvist collaborated with Ferdinand Boberg

Ferdinand Boberg

Ferdinand Boberg, born 11 April 1860 in Falun, died 7 May 1946 in Stockholm, was a Swedish architect.He was one of the most productive and prominent architects of Stockholm around the turn of the 20th century. Among his most famous work is an electrical plant at Björns Trädgård in Stockholm, that...

 in the construction of the large "industry hall" with its cupola. The cupola was probably influenced by the one built by Martin Nyrop

Martin Nyrop

Martin Nyrop was a Danish architect who designed the Copenhagen City Hall, the Vallekilde Højskole, and the majority of the buildings for the Nordic Industrial, Agricultural and Art Exhibition.-Selected buildings:...

 over the main hall of the Copenhagen Exhibition of 1888, but Boberg and Lilljekvist added four high minaret-like towers connected to the cupola by bridges.

The Royal Dramatic Theatre

He became involved in the project for the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1901. He started with a classical design, which eventually developed a more Baroque character. In the end a he produced a design that took some of the volumes from Neo-Baroque architecture

Neo-baroque

The Baroque Revival or Neo-baroque was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture which displays important aspects of Baroque style, but is not of the Baroque period proper—i.e., the 17th and 18th centuries.Some examples of Neo-baroque architecture:*...

 but with ornamental and sculptural forms borrowed from Swedish nature but influenced by continental Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

, which, by the time the building was completed in 1908, had already started to go out of fashion.

The architect Carl Westman

Carl Westman

Ernst Carl Westman was a Swedish architect and interior designer. He was an early adopter of the National Romantic Style, but turned later to the neo-classical style of the 1920s.-Biography :...

, whose ideal was more austere, criticized the building for its flamboyant decoration. In Westman's view the decoration of the building should be like the ornaments of a knight's armour rather than like the bands and flowers of his lady's dress. Lilljekvist replied that a dramatic theatre need not look grim, like a knight in armour. Thalia

Thalia

Thalia was the Muse who presided over comedy and idyllic poetry. In this context her name means "flourishing", because the praises in her songs flourish through time. She was the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the eighth-born of the nine Muses....

, as a woman, could be allowed her bands and flowers. Rather than dressing her in sackcloth and ashes, she "may meet us friendly and smiling, as long as the smile is chaste and the dress is white".

Additional criticism was directed at the theatre building and its architect because of its huge and uncalculated expenses. Lilljekvist was not given any similarly large projects again. In the following years, he worked on several projects for Swedish embassy buildings abroad, and the last decade-and-a-half of his life was entirely dedicated to urban planning. From 1918 until 1930, he served as head of the urban planning bureau of the National Board of Public Building.