Sonck, Lars Eliel

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Sonck, Lars Eliel (1870–1956). Finnish architect. His early work, combining contemporary European styles and vernacular idioms, was associated with National Romanticism. His Villa Sonck, Finström, Åland Islands (1894), and other houses of the period, drew on traditions of log-construction (e.g. Villa Ainola, Järvenpää (1904), for the composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) ). He designed St Michael's Church, Turku (1894), much influenced by German brick churches, and his masterpiece, St John's Cathedral, Tampere (1900–7), in which rough-textured stone and sculpted details were successfully integrated. His monumental Stock Exchange (1911) and Mortgage Society Building (1908), both in Helsinki, showed a tendency towards Neo-Classicism. In his town-planning work he was influenced by Sitte. He laid out Kulosaari, a Helsinki suburb (1907–9), and parts of Töölö district (1903).

Bibliography

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxx/3 (Oct. 1971), 228–37;
Kivinen et al. (1990);
Korvenmaa (1991);
Jane Turner (1996)

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