Lars Sonck
| Lars Sonck | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Lars Eliel Sonck 10 August 1870 Kälviä, Finland |
| Died | 14 March 1956 Helsinki, Finland |
| Nationality | Finnish |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Buildings |
Tampere Cathedral, Tampere Eira Hospital, Helsinki Kallio Church, Helsinki Stock Exchange, Helsinki |
| Projects | "Sonck quartier", Töölö, Helsinki |
Lars Eliel Sonck (born in Kälviä, Finland 1870; died in Helsinki, Finland 1956) was a Finnish architect. He graduated from Helsinki Polytechnic Institute in 1894 and immediately won a major design competition for a church in Turku, St Michael's Church, ahead of many established architects. The church was designed in the prevailing neo-Gothic style. However, Sonck's style would soon go through a dramatic change, in the direction of Art Nouveau and National Romanticism that was moving through Europe at the end of the 19th century. During the 1920s, Sonck would also design a number of buildings in the emerging Nordic Classicism style.
A prominent figure in Finland's search for architectural identity - at a period when Finland was a Grand Duchy under the control of Russia and Finnish politicians, intellectuals and artists were defining a distinct national identity - Sonck played a leading role in the development of National Romanticism, along with such other architects as Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren, and Eliel Saarinen. This style of architecture is often seen as part of the Art Nouveau style or Jugendstil, but shows influences from Romanesque architecture as well as elements borrowed from the historical tradition of Finland's medieval stone structures and residential wooden architecture. Among Sonck's well-known works in the neo-Romanesque style are Kallio Church, Helsinki (1912) and Kultaranta, the President of Finland's official summer residence in Naantali (1920); in the Jugendstil style are Tampere Cathedral, Tampere (1907) the Eira Hospital, Helsinki (1905) and "Ainola" (1903), the family home for the composer Jean Sibelius in Järvenpää; in the Nordic Classicism style are the housing blocks on Museokatu Street, in Töölö, Helsinki (c. 1920) and the Mikael Agricola Church, Helsinki (1935).
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