Ivar Tengbom

Who was Ivar Tengbom?

Ivar Justus Tengbom was a Swedish architect and one of the best-known representatives of the Swedish neo-classical architecture of the 1910s and 1920s.

Tengbom was born in Vireda in Jönköping County, studied at the Chalmers School of Technology in Gothenburg 1894-1898, at the architecture school of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm 1898-1901 and abroad 1905-1906. He worked 1906-1912 with Ernst Torulf in Stockholm and Gothenburg 1906-1912, and on his own from 1912 in Stockholm. He was appointed architect in the Office of the Chief Intendant in 1906 and professor of architecture in the Royal Swedish College of Art in 1916. He became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in 1917. In 1921 he was appointed Director General of the State Office of Construction.

The architect firm Tengbom & Torulf won second prize in the 1905 competition for the Stockholm City Hall building, and in 1906 again second prize for the Engelbrektskyrkan in Stockholm. They were more successful in the competition for the City Court building in Borås in 1909, where they won first prize and were allowed to execute their design. Another public building designed by Tengbom in collaboration with Torulf was the new church in Arvika, completed in 1911. The Trelleborg Water Tower was built after drawings by Tengbom and completed in 1912.