Erik Bryggman

Åbo Akademi University Library, Turku

Erik Bryggman (7 February 1891, Turku – 21 December 1955, Turku) was a Finnish architect. He studied architecture at Helsinki University of Technology, completing his studies in 1916. In 1920 he travelled to Italy, where he became inspired more by the local vernacular architecture than the classical or Baroque works. He worked in Helsinki for architects Sigurd Frosterus, Armas Lindgren and Valter Jung before starting his own office in Turku in 1923.

Career

Bryggman came to prominence in Finland in the early 1920s with his houses designed in the Nordic Classicism style. In 1927 he started to collaborate with architect Alvar Aalto, and together they became pioneers in Finland in modernist architecture. Their best-known joint project is the design for the Turku Fair of 1929. It is often said to have anticipated the pure modernism of the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930; but in fact, the Turku Fair was on a far smaller scale than the one in Stockholm – the main architects for which were Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz – and Aalto and Bryggman visited nearby Stockholm, Sweden, during the planning and building stages and took inspiration from it. With their celebration of structure, as well as typography and "street furniture", the influence of Russian Constructivist architecture on both the Stockholm and Turku fairs has also been noted by historians. When Aalto moved to Helsinki in 1935, Bryggman continued to practice on his own, though never achieving the fame of Aalto. His two most famous individual works are the extension to the library of Åbo Akademi University, Turku (1935), designed in a more strict Functionalism style, and the Resurrection Chapel (1941), Turku, which represents a mature synthesis of Bryggman's architecture, moving towards organic forms, and creating a dialogue with the surrounding landscape. The Resurrection Chapel is one of the best known church buildings in Finland located in the Turku cemetery.

Bryggman was also responsible for the restoration of the medieval Turku Cathedral, and the 1927 renovation of the Betel Church in Turku.

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