Lars Eliel Sonck
b. Kdlvid, 1870;
d. Helsinki, 1956.

Lars Eliel Sonck was a prominent and prolific figure in Finland’s anxious search for a national identity after the turn of the century. The rise of National Romanticism paralleled that of Jugendstil within continental Europe, and Sonck, along with Eliel Saarinen, Hermann Gesellius and Armas Lindgren, played a leading role in the creation of this new style. He graduated from Helsinki’s Polytechnic Institute in 1894 and found immediate success after winning a major competition for a church at Turku. His architecture reflects the “patriotic” fervour of the time and looks to the country’s medieval stone buildings and the wooden villas of the Karelian region for inspiration. Many of his imposing commercial and ecclesiastical buildings incorporate elements of the neo Romanesque style, similar in spirit to the work of the American architect H.H. Richardson. Sonck turned his back on the rising clamour for new rationalism within architecture and retreated increasingly into Finland’s early history to develop a heavy monumentalism often employing archaic Nordic or Celtic motifs to add a sense of gravitas. His long and extremely active career lasted up to the 1950s. His office produced more than 150 schemes.