Peter Celsing

Who was Peter Celsing?

Peter Celsing was a Swedish modernist architect.

Celsing studied at the architectural school of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. He later became professor of architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology. After working for some time in Beirut, he became head of the architectural office of Stockholms Spårvägar, the Stockholm tram and local railway authority, and built a number of suburban metro stations. He also designed several churches: in Härlanda, Almtuna and Vällingby, a much-publicized modernist suburb of Stockholm.

Celsing often worked in a brutalist style with large exposed grey concrete surfaces, but occasionally combined this with large glass panes exposing the structure of the building from the outside, and interior details in wood. The best known examples of this are the Kulturhuset at Sergels Torg in central Stockholm, the Filmhuset, the house of the Swedish Film Institute on Gärdet in Stockholm, and his addition to Carolina Rediviva, the main building of the Uppsala University Library. In Uppsala, Celsing also built a new wing for the Stockholm Nation building, and the current Ekonomikum building.