Liljevalchs+ has been shortlisted for the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award, the EU Mies Award, and is one of 40 buildings to advance in the 2024 competition for Europe's finest buildings.

The extension to Liljevalchs was designed by Wingårdhs in collaboration with artist Ingegerd Råman. The project began with an international architecture competition in 2013, and the building was completed in 2021.

The extension is conceived as a discreet support to the modest 1916 art gallery. It steps back, but without shrinking away. Like the main building, it is a structure with integrity. The old art gallery retains control of the situation facing Djurgårdsvägen, while its annex turns toward Falkenbergsgatan. The division of roles is more than merely visual. The original entrance — an established emblem for Liljevalchs as a whole and a cornerstone of the experience of its architecture — retains its status. The addition presents itself primarily as its own exhibition building with a shop and café, while naturally also offering the possibility of receiving visitors to Liljevalchs as a whole.

The wing shares the same eaves height as the main building. Above this rises a landscape of 166 roof lanterns, which give the galleries structure and rhythm. Within the two-by-two-metre grid created by the lanterns, a wide variety of spatial configurations become possible. Together with the glass objects decorating the building's façades, the silhouette also gives the building its own character — shimmering, almost fragile, in contrast to the precisely cast concrete walls.

The relief of 6,860 embedded glass objects also lends the façades a textile-like quality, echoing the light architecture of columns and infill walls in the original building. The glass mesh functions as a modern variant of Renaissance diamond rustication — like the rivets on the treasure chest that the art gallery itself resembles.

Facts
Category: Art gallery, extension
Project start: 2013
Year built: 2017–2021
Address: Djurgårdsvägen 60, Stockholm
Client: Fastighetskontoret Stockholms stad (the Stockholm City Real Estate Office)
GFA Liljevalchs+ (the extension): 2,645 sqm

For more information and press inquiries, contact Pål Ericksson at pal.ericksson@wingardhs.se, or visit https://miesarch.com/work/5193