I met the architect in his studio outside Stockholm, a converted barn with white walls and no furniture except two chairs. He had just turned down a commission for a museum — his third refusal that year.

‘I build less on purpose,’ he said. ‘Every building I don’t build is a field that stays open. A view that stays intact. A silence that stays whole.’

He showed me his portfolio. In forty years, he had built eleven structures. Each one was spare, precise, and almost invisible in its landscape. ‘The best building,’ he said, ‘is the one you don’t notice until you’ve already left.’