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Lars Eliel Sonck (10.08.1870 - 14.03.1956) was considerd to be one of the most important architects of the Finnish National Romanticism and early Modernism in Finland. In the summer of 1892, while still a student, Lars Sonck participated in an excursion of the Finnish Society for monuments of antiquity. The excursion explored the Finnish regions of Uusimaa, Satakunta and Häme. During this excursion Lars Sonck studied and sketched 31 churches and a large number of other buildings. In 1894 Lars Sonck made his degree in architecture.
Lars Soncks career covers 50 years of Finnish architectural history. His first works date from the time of the last important buildings of Hojer era, the masters of Nordic Neo-Renaissance. Soncks latest works have been completed at a time when functionalism entered into the Finnish architecture. Over the years Lars Sonck and his office designed more than 150 executed buildings and projects.
His whole life long Lars Sonck was a private architect and never taught at the Polytechnic Institute like many of his colleagues. His clientele included mainly people of his own social background, the upper middle classes.
At the beginning of the 20th century Lars Sonck designed a few dozen villas. Among them were some experimental buildings in timber frame with wooden planked walls, but mainly he used undisguised log constructions in his country villas. In the early days his villas made of wooden planks were characterized by a rich ornamentation.
1905 Church St. Michael - Turku
1907 Tampere Cathedral - Tampere