Description

Höör lies almost in the middle of Scania, a province at the south tip of Sweden. Its nearly 15,000 inhabitants live in a couple of villages which, since the end of the sixties, form a community completely shaped by rural tourism. When the churchyard was extended at the beginning of the seventies, a chapel was also added. As the site slopes distinctly to the south, it was not difficult to separate the lower level, which was reserved for the preparation of funerals, functionally and visually from the upper floor. This meant that the chapel could also be used for services on Sundays.

The plan of the building is in the form of a square. On arriving at the cemetery, visitors soon encounter a square with equal sides when they follow its central axis in a westerly direction. At the far end of the axis – at the crest of the hill where the path appears to vanish – there is a canopy, the posts of which define the corners a square of three by three units. Behind the entrance on the left hand side the square shape reoccurs. In the elongated building, an L-shaped access route links three squares of four by four, five by five and six by six units respectively. In the progression from the smallest square in the north to the largest in the south – at the same time a progression from open canopy to closed assembly space – the area for the mourners doubles from each to the next.

The chapel measures about 10.6 by 10.6 metres. Coarse bricks, wide mortar joints, narrow ventilation slits: rough textured walls surround a freestanding baldachin. Its steel supports comprise twin T-beams, with a broad cross-shaped steel capital; its concrete coffered roof numbers eight by eight coffers, each square in shape. There are two windows, too high to permit a view outside, but which admit sunlight from the east and south. Light from above enters on all sides through a gap between the concrete roof and the brickwork walls. Glass panes with heating elements cover these gaps. Metal strips, which look like silver paper, reflect light from the edges of the walls into the room. Artificial light is provided by simple light bulbs in the centre of each coffer. The altar stands immediately in front of the west wall.

The way in which the bricks and supports are used in Höör is reminiscent of St Peter’s Church in Klippan, Sweden built by Sigurd Lewerentz in 1966. However the use of building materials that evoke the conflict between the archaic and the industrial is stronger in Höör than in Klippan. Nevertheless, in the cemetery at Höör a coherent, harmonious architecture has been achieved: on the one hand through the interplay of volume and module, on the other through the colour harmonies of brown and grey for everything material and yellow and white for everything that is light.

Arkitektur, no. 4/1996, pp. 20-, pp. 44- | Caldenby, Claes (Ed. et al.): Architektur im 20. Jahrhundert. Schweden, exhibition catalogue, Munich 1998, p. 325 | Svenson, Rune G.: Klockarebackens Kapell Höör. Arkitekt Bernt Nyberg, Höör 2004 | Wærn, Rasmus (et al.): Guide till Sveriges Arkitektur. Byggnadskonst under 1000 år, Stockholm (n.d.) 2001, p. 35

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Originally published in: Rudolf Stegers, Sacred Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2008.