RESEARCH | St. Peter’s Church, Klippan

St. Peter’s, Klippan is a church designed by Sigurd Lewerentz, a Swedish architect.

Sigurd Lewerentz

St Peter’s is one of the last buildings designed by the architect. It is a masterpiece in applying the principles of modernist building to a humble context.

Hand-drawn plan of St. Peter’s Church – click to enlarge

Kilppan is a town in South Sweden, a small community of just over 8000 people. This simple setting is the basis of the design of the church, two brick built buildings.

Hand-drawn section of St. Peter’s Church – click to enlarge

They are unassuming and compact, the main rectangular church is hugged by the L-shaped administration building.What makes this church remarkable is the way the materials are expressed. It is constructed from dark grey bricks which wrap around walls, floors and ceilings, inside and out.

The brick is a material of human proportions, each is uniformly moulded and fired so that it can be placed in a person’s hand. When built with the bricks can be interpreted as a whole, creating a texture that is all derived from the limitations of the hand. Lewerentz understood this, and so built St.Peter’s with brick of a single size that couldn’t be cut to fit or altered. From looking at one brick, a person can understand the whole.

The roughness of the brick also influences the rest of the construction. Mortar joints were simply wiped with a cloth to create a flush joint, with no effort taken to keep the brick clean. Windows are the simplest design possible; a glass pane pressed against an opening with metal clips to hold it in place and black sealant smeared around the edges to ensure weather-proofing. The exposed metal truss inside holds up the brick vaulting, and the light fittings and trunking is affixed straight onto the wall.

It is a simple interpretation of a building. It is humbling, reflecting the intimate needs of the community. It is everything it is supposed to be and nothing more.