Essinge kyrka

The site for the church was set aside by Stockholm city council in 1941, and an architectural competition followed in 1943. Cyrillus Johansson's winning design became his final completed commission; he did not live to see the finished building. Construction of the parish hall began in 1953 and the church itself in 1957, with the whole complex completed and consecrated on Thanksgiving Day in 1959.

The church is built in a basilica form, with a taller nave and lower side aisles, oriented north-south with its entrance to the south. Johansson drew on southern European architectural traditions, visible in the arched vaulting of the interior and especially in the tall, freestanding bell tower, a campanile standing apart from the main building. Rising 48 metres including its cross, the tower is a well-known landmark in southern Stockholm. All the buildings are constructed of red brick with broad horizontal mortar joints, a hallmark of Johansson's work, and are roofed in copper.

Inside, the floor is laid with brick in a herringbone pattern, the walls are roughly plastered and tinted a pale blue, and the ceiling is finished with blue-stained wood panelling. The chancel receives daylight through concealed windows, giving the altar area a noticeably brighter feel than the rest of the church. Fourteen brass light fittings designed by Johansson hang above the pews, their perforated shades forming biblical motifs.

Above the altar hangs a large backlit stained-glass window, Farewell and Return, by the artist Einar Forseth, made up of more than 600 leaded glass pieces. It was originally created for the chapel of the Karolinska Hospital and has been on loan to Essinge kyrka since 1988. The font, built from 318 hand-sawn bricks and fitted with a silver bowl, sits in the east aisle beneath a pierced brass light fixture shaped with stars and a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit.

The church's communion silver, a gift from the Essinge Church Foundation in 1954, was designed by the silversmith Wiwen Nilsson. The main organ was built by Olof Hammarberg of Gothenburg in 1959, with a smaller choir organ added by Åkerman & Lund in 1976.