The architect Lars Sonck

(10 August 1870 - 14 March 1956)

Lars Eliel Sonck was born in Kälviä, Central Ostrobothnia in 1870. His father was the parish chaplain, pastor Knut Emil Sonck and his mother was Anna Rebecka Nordström, the daughter of a burgess from Kristinestad. The family had nine children, of whom Lars Eliel was the youngest. In 1878 the family moved to the Åland Islands when pastor Sonck was appointed vicar of this parish. Throughout his life Lars Sonck regarded the Åland Islands as his true home district.

The south-western Finnish city of Turku was initially the place where Lars Sonck attended school. On graduating from the Lyceum, he enrolled in the building construction department of the Turku Industrial School and subsequently continued his studies at the Polytechnical College of Finland in Helsinki.

As a 23 year-old, and even before graduating, Lars Sonck made his breakthrough as an architect by winning a competition organised in Turku to design a major church.

During his career Lars Sonck designed churches, public offices, apartment buildings, and log cabins, prepared town and city plans, and held strong views on public construction.

Lars Sock was a warm-hearted human being with an understanding of life. He never founded a family of his own, but was always surrounded by a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.

He was granted the title of professor in 1921 and became the first honorary member of the Finnish Association of Architects in 1930.

Historical materials were characteristic of all of his work. His numerous trips to the old cities of Europe had a clear impact on his designs. Professor J. E. Siren characterised Sonck’s architectural essence in the following words: “The quintessential dramatist of Finnish construction art, an incomparable master of grey granite and tarred logs.”

Sonck’s best known works

Log villas

AINOLA, Järvenpää, the home of Aino and Jean Sibelius, completed in 1904.

LASSES VILLA, Finström, Åland Islands. Lars Sonck’s own villa, which was his place of work in summer and an important meeting place for friends. Completed in 1895.

SKOGSHYDDAN, which is decorated with Karelian ornamentation, and the HELLBERG villa, which represents a Japanese style. Both of these are in the Åland Islands and were completed in the late 1890s.

Churches

ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH, TURKU, was the winning entry in the 1894 architectural competition and Lars Sonck’s first monumental work. It was not until 1899, after passing through several stages that construction work began, and the church was completed in 1904. The decorative paintings were designed by the artist Willy Baer.

TAMPERE CATHEDRAL was also the winner of an architectural contest and was completed in 1907. The cathedral took five years to build. Its artistic decorations were the work of Hugo Simberg. The altarpiece is “The Resurrection”, a fresco by Magnus Enckel.

KALLIO CHURCH in Helsinki was constructed in 1907 and is held to be a fully independent work, entirely free of historical precedents of form, in which Lars Sonck realised his ambition to design a church that would dominate the scenery of its location.

MIKAEL AGRICOLA CHURCH in Helsinki has a façade of dark red brickwork and a tall tower and spire that distinguish the building from the surrounding apartment buildings. The church was completed in 1935.
 

Other public buildings

1903-1905
The HELSINKI TELEPHONE COMPANY building
EIRA HOSPITAL
The PRIVATBANKEN bank building

1908-1911
The HYPOTEEKKIYHDISTYS mortgage association building
The HELSINKI STOCK EXCHANGE building

1916
VILLA KULTARANTA in Naantali, south-western Finland. This building, which was originally the reception villa of the Kordelin family, is now the official summer residence of the Finnish President.
 

Town and city plans

The plans for the Töölö district of Helsinki city centre, 1899
3rd prize in the city plan competition for the city of Turku, 1906
The plans for the Kulosaari district of Helsinki, 1907
Modifications to the plans for the town of Rauma, 1912
Extension and modification of the plan for the town of Mariehamn in the Åland Islands, 1918.
 

(Sources: Lars Sonck publication of the Finnish Museum of Architecture.)