Acknowledgments

No scholarly work is undertaken without funding, and I am grateful to the institutions that undertook to support my work, starting with the Swedish- Bicentennial Fund (2001), the Swedish Institute (2003), the National Endowment for the Humanities (2005), and the Graham Foundation (2008). Residence at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, enabled me to fill out the European context for Asplund’s building (2010), and my time as a Senior Mellon Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) in Washington, D.C. (2012), allowed me to bring this work to completion. I am grateful to Alexis Sornin, director of the Study Centre at the CCA, Elizabeth Cropper, dean at CASVA, and Therese O’Malley and Peter Lukehart, associate deans, for generous welcomes. Research support from the Vassar College Research Committee and from the college for the endowment of the chair I have held in honor of Mary Conover Mellon since 1993 has undergirded my work. A scholar who commits the crime of chang- ing fields in midcareer is not an easy person to support, and I am deeply apprecia- tive of the work of those who fruitlessly (and fruitfully) wrote letters of recommen- dation on my behalf. I am grateful for generous help from Bengt-Åke Engström (president of the Dis- trict Court of Gothenburg), Thomas Hall (Stockholm University), Gun Schönbeck, Helena Mattisson, Stefan Högberg (RSG), Anders Larsson (Gothenburg University Library), and Anders and Christina Stendhal (Gothenburg). Many others guided me through the more obscure parts of this study. Friends gave critical readings, answered difficult questions, and shared lunches and evening meals, and I am very pleased to add their names here: Anders Bergström (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm), Claes Caldenby (Chalmers Technical University, Gothenburg), Eva Eriksson (Stockholm), Brian Lukacher (Vassar College), Marc Treib (University of California, Berkeley), and Kerstin Wickman (Konstfack, Stockholm). Christian Ottesen, teacher, journalist, and author, introduced me to the beauty of the Swed- ish language, for which I remain grateful.

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00i-264_Adams_4p.indb 17 6/27/14 3:27 PM Johan Mårtelius (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) and Elisabeth Lill- man (Stockholm), in addition to much wisdom, provided a home away from home and generously introduced me to their family. A special note of thanks is due Mag- nus Ringborg and Christina Lillman Ringborg. Much of my work took place in Stockholm, at the Royal Library, and I am grateful for its ever-efficient staff. Eric De Groat, Ulla Elliasson, Susanna Janfalk, Jonas Malmdahl, and Torun Warne facilitated work at the Swedish Centre for Architec- ture and Design (Stockholm), and Annika Tengstrand solved many last-minute problems there. I also used Asplund’s magnificent Stockholm City Library, the University Library of Gothenburg, and the Stockholm University Library. At home I frequented the New York Public Library, the finest general scholarly library in the world, the Yale University Library, and the Vassar College Library, where its art librarian, Thomas Hill, was a friend and resource. Vassar College’s Interlibrary Loan office proved equal to most tasks. My work on Asplund began in 1999 as a result of an invitation from Kurt For- ster, then director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, to curate an exhibition (never realized) comparing Asplund’s Courthouse extension and Giuseppe Ter- ragni’s Casa del Fascio, Como. I am grateful for that invitation and for the pleasure of working with him and with Nicholas Olsberg, Elisabetta Terragni, Måns-Holst Eckström, and Michael Landzelius in the exhibition’s preparation. I am especially grateful to Howard Shubert, my former student, with whom I examined all of the Asplund drawings for the first time. His many insights into modern drawing and his understanding of the nature of the architectural exhibition made the experi- ence of study an enormous pleasure. If the text reveals unacknowledged insights that he provided, I apologize in advance. Selections from this book have been delivered as lectures over the years (at Wesleyan University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Princeton University, the Society of Architectural Historians annual meeting, the University of Rome Faculty of Engineering at Tor Vergata, the Isti- tuto universitario di architettura Venezia, the Facoltà di architettura civile at the Politecnico di Milano, and New York University as the Walter S. Cook Memorial Lecture), and I am grateful for comments from many people at these locations,

xviii Acknowledgments

00i-264_Adams_4p.indb 18 6/27/14 3:27 PM especially Marco Biraghi, Claudia Conforti, Richard Etlin, Alberto Ferlenga, Fran- cesco Paolo Fiore, David Friedman, Faisal Hassan, Réjean Legault, Marzia Maran- dolo, Tod Marder, Cammie McAtee, Luca Ortelli, Sergio Poretti, Joseph Siry, and Marvin Trachtenberg. Additionally, others have fielded my many questions or provided stimulating questions of their own: Guido Beltramini, Eve Blau, Paul Byard, Johan Celsing, Lucy Creagh, Kenneth Frampton, Therese O’Malley, Peter Papademetriou, John Pinto, Peter Reed, and Lukasz Stanek. Kevin Stevens (Ford- ham University) helped with the preparation of the manuscript. Giovanni de Flego (Trieste) prepared the superb line drawings of Asplund’s building. Blueprints were a generous gift of the Stadsbyggnadskontor, Gothenburg. At Vassar College, Amy Bocko worked miracles on the images, and Liliana Aguis helped in matters orga- nizational. Nicole Griggs (Columbia University) provided research eyes on the French newspaper files. Susanne Fusso (Wesleyan University) translated Russian to English. Most important, Ellie Goodman (Penn State Press) was a loyal and sharp- eyed editor; her assistant, Charlee Redman, answered my many questions instantly and cheerfully; Keith Monley read the manuscript with an eagle eye and sympa- thetic understanding: no author was ever better served. All remaining errors and infelicities are my own. Publication has been aided by the Birgitta and Peter Celsing stiftelse (Stock- holm), for which I am very grateful. During a number of memorable visits, Birgitta Celsing generously introduced me to many aspects of Swedish architecture. I am also grateful to Kicki Johansson, who enabled the book to receive a special grant from HIGAB (Gothenburg), the management corporation currently restoring Asplund’s building. She met my every request for visits to the site with patience and good humor. The Vassar College Research Committee also contributed signifi- cantly to this publication, and I am grateful to them. My own extended family provided encouragement: Robin Adams and Julie Gedalicia, Will and Jonathan Self. Alexis Self (London) helped with research in the British newspapers. Jack Self (London) provided the outline map of central Gothenburg. At home, my wife, Laurie Nussdorfer, contributed a historian’s insight into the problems of this complex story, helping me simplify and focus and provid- ing emotional and spiritual support. A book is insufficient oblation.

Acknowledgments xix

00i-264_Adams_4p.indb 19 6/27/14 3:27 PM Finally, in writing this book and thinking of my own discovery of Sweden, I wish to remember my Swedish grandmother, Elisabeth von Saltza (1884–1978). She told me stories about her childhood in the old country, about Mem and Lilla Mem, the houses in which she lived as a child, about her father, the painter Carl Freder- ick von Saltza (1858–1905), and her mother, Henrietta Stoopendahl (1863–1905). It seemed like another world then; it seems a little closer now.

xx Acknowledgments

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