Ivar Justus Tengbom was a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 and one of the best-known representatives of the Swedish neo-classical architecture of the 1910s and 1920s.

Tengbom was born in Vireda in Jönköping County

Jönköping County

Jönköping County is a county or län in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Halland, Västra Götaland, Östergötland, Kalmar and Kronoberg. The capital is Jönköping.- Provinces :...

, studied at the Chalmers School of Technology

Chalmers University of Technology

Chalmers University of Technology , is a Swedish university located in Gothenburg that focuses on research and education in technology, natural science and architecture.-History:...

 in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

 1894-1898, at the architecture school of the Royal Swedish 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...

 in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

 1898-1901 (being awarded the so-called Royal Medal) and abroad 1905-1906. He worked 1906-1912 with Ernst Torulf in Stockholm and Gothenburg 1906-1912, and on his own from 1912 in Stockholm. He was appointed architect in the Office of the Chief Intendant in 1906 and professor of architecture in the Royal Swedish College of Art in 1916. He became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in 1917. In 1921 he was appointed Director General of the State Office of Construction (Byggnadsstyrelsen).

The architect firm Tengbom & Torulf won second prize in the 1905 competition for the Stockholm City Hall

Stockholm City Hall

Stockholm City Hall is the building of the Municipal Council for the City of Stockholm in Sweden. It stands on the eastern tip of Kungsholmen island, next to Riddarfjärden's northern shore and facing the islands of Riddarholmen and Södermalm. It houses offices and conference rooms as well as...

 building (after Ragnar Östberg

Ragnar Östberg

Ragnar Östberg was a Swedish architect who is most famous for designing Stockholm City Hall. He is the most famous architect within the so-called "national romanticist" movement in Sweden...

), and in 1906 again second prize for the Engelbrektskyrkan (Engelbrekt Church) in Stockholm (built according to the design of Lars Israel Wahlman). They were more successful in the competition for the City Court building (rådhus) in Borås

Borås

Borås is a locality and the seat of Borås Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 63,441 inhabitants in 2005.- Geography :Borås is located at the point of two crossing railways, among them the railway between Gothenburg and Kalmar, and is often considered the Swedish city gaining the...

 in 1909, where they won first prize and were allowed to execute their design. Another public building designed by Tengbom in collaboration with Torulf was the new church in Arvika

Arvika

Arvika is a locality and the seat of Arvika Municipality, Värmland County, Sweden with 14,184 inhabitants in 2005.-Geography:The town of Arvika is situated at Kyrkviken, a bay of Glafsfjorden, Sweden's only inland fjord, a remnant of the time following the last ice age .The area is hilly with the...

, completed in 1911.

After Tengbom left the collaboration with Torulf, he made the design for the main office of the Stockholms Enskilda Bank

Stockholms Enskilda Bank

Stockholms Enskilda Bank, sometimes called Enskilda banken or SEB, was a Swedish bank, founded in 1856 by André Oscar Wallenberg as Stockholm's first private bank...

 at the Kungsträdgården Park in Stockholm (1912–1915). Another Stockholm office for the bank, at Götgatan on Södermalm

Södermalm

Södermalm, often shortened to "Söder", is a district in central Stockholm. It covers the large island formerly called "Åsön". With a population of 99,685, it is one of the most densely populated districts of Scandinavia...

, was built according to Tengbom's design in 1916. Another bank office was the one designed for the Borås Enskilda Bank (1916). Other Tengbom buildings from the time period were that of the building for the daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet

Svenska Dagbladet

Svenska Dagbladet is a daily newspaper in Sweden. The first issue appeared on 18 December 1884. Svenska Dagbladet is published in Stockholm and provides coverage of national and international news as well as local coverage of the Greater Stockholm region...

at the street Karduansmakargatan in Stockholm, and the Högalidskyrkan (Högalid Church) in Stockholm (after winning first prize in a competition).

In the 1920s he made the design for the building of the Stockholm School of Economics

Stockholm School of Economics

The Stockholm School of Economics or Handelshögskolan i Stockholm is one of Northern Europe's leading business schools. Its Masters in Management program is ranked no. 2 in Northern Europe and no. 13 in Europe by the Financial Times...

 (1925) and the Stockholm Concert Hall

Stockholm Concert Hall

The Stockholm Concert Hall is the main hall for orchestral music in Stockholm, Sweden. Designed by Ivar Tengbom and inaugurated in 1926, it is the home to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. It is also where the awarding ceremony for the Nobel Prizes, Polar Music Prize are held annually....

 (1923–1926) at Hötorget

Hötorget

Hötorget is a city square in the center of Stockholm. During the daytime it is the site of a fruit and vegetable market, except on Sundays, when flea markets are arranged....

 Square. The home of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra

The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is a Swedish orchestra based in Stockholm.The orchestra was founded in 1902 as the Stockholm Concert Society . The orchestra became a permanent ensemble in 1914. Since 1926, it has been based in the Stockholm Concert Hall...

 and known as the place where the Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 ceremony takes place, the Hall, a light-blue building with a portico with tall, slender polygonal columns with corinthian

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

 capitals. The concert hall is probably Tengbom's best-known building and, together with Gunnar Asplund

Gunnar Asplund

Erik Gunnar Asplund was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a key representative of Nordic Classicism of the 1920s, and during the last decade of his life as a major proponent of the modernist style which made its breakthrough in Sweden at the Stockholm International Exhibition...

's Stockholm Public Library

Stockholm Public Library

Stockholm Public Library is a rotunda library building in Stockholm, Sweden, designed by Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund. The library was prepared from 1918 and onwards by a committee in which Asplund himself took part. Construction began in 1924, and the library was completed in 1928...

, the most widely recognized example of the neo-classical architecture of the Swedish 1920s, in English referred to as Swedish Grace.

In the last years of the 1920s, he designed the main office of Ivar Kreuger

Ivar Kreuger

Ivar Kreuger was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908 Kreuger co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB which specialized in new building techniques. By aggressive investments and innovative financial instruments he built a global match...

's corporation Svenska Tändsticksbolaget at Trädgårdsgatan in Stockholm. His later production includes the building for the Swedish Institute at Rome

Swedish Institute at Rome

The Swedish Institute in Rome is a research institution that serves as the base for archaeological excavations and other scientific research in Italy...

 1938-1940. His son Anders Tengbom (1911–2009) was also, in his own right, a very famous architect. One of his greatest creations was Bonnierhuset, one of the tallest buildings in Stockholm.

External links

• The Stockholm Concert Hall (in English)