Associate Architecture Chair Featured in Documentary on Historical Swedish Architect
Matt Hall, Associate Professor and Associate Program Chair of Architecture, has been featured as an interviewee in a documentary about Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz.

Matt Hall, Associate Professor and Associate Program Chair of Architecture, has been featured as an interviewee in a documentary about Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz.
Lewerentz was one of the premier architects in Swedish history in a career that spanned more than half a century.
Directed by Sven Blume, the documentary, Lewerentz Divine Darkness, has been released internationally and is being screened at venues around the world. Blume’s tour includes stops at architecture schools across the U.S., with a screening scheduled at Auburn’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA) on Wednesday, January 29.
“My involvement actually started with my research on a much lesser-known architect, Bernt Nyberg, who was working from about 1955 to 1975,” Hall shared. “Nyberg worked with Lewerentz on his late projects and entered two competitions with him. Lewerentz was a super quiet and reclusive person. Because of this, most scholarship on him was interpretative, but in talking with Swedish artist Mariana Manner, who worked with both of them, I learned she had films Nyberg had taken of Lewerentz’s late projects under construction and hours of recorded interviews.”
Recognizing the importance of this material, Hall connected Manner with Blume, who incorporated the original films, along with new materials and interviews, to create the documentary. Hall was interviewed for the film during a symposium held in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 2022, and his voice is featured in the documentary trailer’s initial moments.
A highlight of Hall’s portion was his discussion of the Flower Kiosk, a project located in the southern city of Malmö and completed in 1969, which was a collaboration between Nyberg and Lewerentz.
“I think Nyberg took more film of that building than anything. It was Lewerentz’s last project and the first Lewerentz building I ever encountered as a young student,” he said. “The building is simultaneously direct yet obtuse. It has a raw look but is very technologically advanced in materials and methods for 1969.”
Hall and Blume had such a positive experience working on the documentary that they have also contributed to a collaborative book. Each has written an essay on Lewerentz for the three-essay collection, Lewerentz & Nyberg in Dialog, which is set to be published by 2G in 2025.
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Exhibition and Publications on Swedish Architects Bernt Nyberg and Sigurd Lewerentz
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