Aperture as Surface

Härlanda Kyrka, Gothenburg. Peter Celsing, 1958.
Photography, Baillie Baille.

When a facade is pared back to the essential ingredients of surface, mass, and material, small and subtle gestures speaking to craft and construction are given heightened significance. At Peter Celsing’s Härlanda Kyrka (1958), windows are constructed as a timber lattice - a grid structure, clad in pressed and folded copper externally, in plane with the tile like surface of the glazed elements, and set flush with the brickwork facades. These apertures read as surface more than openings in the wall and define a subtle sense of order and rhythm within a frame. The building itself is sparse and somewhat austere, but is softened by the introduction of this quietly decorative motif.