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Clason, Isak Gustaf
(b Falun, 30 July 1856; d Rättvik, 18 July 1930). Swedish architect, draughtsman and writer. He studied at the Kungliga Tekniska Högskola and the Kungliga Akademi för de fria Konsterna in Stockholm (1877–81). On his Grand Tour to France, Italy and Spain (1883–6), he devoted special interest to the châteaux of the Loire Valley and to the materials, colours and ornamentation in Spanish and Italian Medieval and Early Renaissance architecture. His travel sketches show his skills as a draughtsman and watercolourist, which are also reflected in his professional drawings. His reading of Viollet-le-Duc’s writings was influential on his concept of architecture, as were impulses from Britain and the Arts and Crafts Movement, although to a lesser extent. One of Clason’s major works is the Nordiska Museum (1889–1906) in Stockholm. The main room is a tall transverse hall, surrounded by two gallery stories, almost in the full length of the building and centred on an apsidal extension. This hall is toplit from a series of circular lanterns, and rib vaulting and composite piers give it an almost cathedral-like, austere atmosphere. On the exterior Clason developed Northern Renaissance elements, executed in colourful sandstone, combined with slate roofs and copper spires. The project required the establishment of an office, in which several young architects, including Ragnar Östberg, received studio training. Clason’s French and Spanish impressions influenced the mature works of his early period, such as the Bünsow House (1886), a splendid block of flats on Strandvägen, and the Hallwyl House (1893–8), a palatial residence (both in Stockholm). Stone and brickwork are masterfully combined in the former, and the all-ashlar façade of the latter contrasts plain surfaces with sharp, shadow-catching details. In his later period, Clason often favoured a ponderous neo-Baroque vocabulary in stone and plaster with references to 16th- and 17th-century Swedish architecture, for example Norrköping Town Hall (1907) and the Private Central Bank (1912) in Gustav Adolf Square in Stockholm. Palatial residences, country houses and restorations constituted a great portion of Clason’s production, but he also planned commercial buildings, such as the Telegraph Workshops (1896), a brick structure in Stockholm, and later on telegraph offices in Warsaw and Moscow. He was professor at the Kungliga Tekniska Högskola from 1890 to 1905 and then Intendant in the Superintendency and the National Board of Building. He was on the juries of several competitions, was President of the National Association of Swedish Architects and wrote several articles on architecture for the Nordisk Familjebok.
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