Peter Celsing

Peter Elof Herman Torsten Folke von Celsing (29 January 1920 – 16 March 1974) was a Swedish modernist architect.

The best-known examples of this are the Kulturhuset (House of Culture) at Sergels torg in central Stockholm (1966–1971), the adjacent headquarters of the Bank of Sweden (1969–1973), and his addition to Carolina Rediviva, the main building of the Uppsala University Library (1953–1962).

[7] The cultural center Kulturhuset (begun 1966, inaugurated 1974; the western part including the theatre was completed in 1971) is from most angles dominated by its concrete structure, with the adjacent theatre building having a façade of stainless steel, but from the front by its glass façade and the thin lines of the concrete floors, giving the impression of a number of shelves open towards the open place outside, Sergels torg.

The reaction against this development has been very strong, and many planned building and traffic projects had to be stopped from the 1970s and later as a result of the public opinion against what largely was, and continues to be, regarded as a significant loss of irreplaceable cultural values.

[citation needed] Kulturhuset was intended as a "cultural oasis" in this new city of commerce, with an open library in the bottom floor, a large theatre, and space for exhibitions in the rest of the building; the original intention was for the Stockholm Museum of Modern Art to occupy large parts of the building, but the museum dropped out of the project in 1969.

The public opinion against the project may have been strengthened by the fact that the Kulturhuset and the interconnected Stockholm City Theatre were used as a temporary parliamentary building for several years, but as such the structure won the prestigious Kasper Salin Prize in 1972.