Margit Dagmar Hall (19 July 1901,

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

— 30 May 1937, Bispgården) was a Swedish architect. She was the first woman to take the architect examination at Chalmers Technical Institute in

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

and the first woman in Sweden to graduate in architecture as an ordinary student.

Biography

The daughter of the engineer Harald Hall and Maria Rodd, Hall grew up in a family of four children in St Petersburg, Russia. She later moved to Gothenburg where she matriculated from the ''Gymnasium för flickor'' (girls high school) in 1919. After an internship in Hans Hedlund's studio, she studied architecture at Chalmers, taking the architecture examination in 1922. She went on to study history of art under Axel Romdahl until 1925. While at Chalmers, she provided support for female students, becoming secretary for ''Göteborgs Kvinnliga Studentförenging'' (Gothenburg's Women Student's Association). From 1924 to 1927, she worked as an architect at Gothenburg's Engineering Office. She also made study trips to Germany, Lithuania and Estonia. Hall designed numerous private homes as well as the Swedish pavilion for the International Trade Industry Exhibition in Brasa near

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

in Latvia. In 1928, she married the furniture designer Per Hilding Eklund (1895–1936) and moved to Bispgården in

Ragunda Municipality Ragunda Municipality (; ) is a municipality in Jämtland County in northern Sweden. Its seat is in Hammarstrand. The present municipality was formed in 1974, when "old" Ragunda Municipality was amalgamated with the municipalities of Fors and Stu ...

. She worked in the family's furniture manufacturing business, Firma P.A. Eklund Snickerfabrik, where she and her husband designed furniture in the Rococo style. Their creations included chairs, sofas, stools, desks and bookshelves. Margit Hall died of cancer when she was only 35 on 30 May 1937 in Bispgården.

Biography

References

Further reading