Nils Einar Eriksson was born in Stockholm in 1899, studying at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and the Royal College of Art (KKH). He excelled in his studies and gained a scholarship for architects that took him to Greece, Italy, and Tunisia. While in France, Eriksson was one of 9 prizewinners in the 1927 competition for new League of Nations Headquarters in Geneva. By 1930 Eriksson was back in Sweden, where he worked for Gunnar Asplund, collaborating with him for the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition. By 1931 his expertise with acoustics was demonstrated in the Gothenburg Concert Hall, creating one of Europe’s most important concert buildings, ahead of its time both acoustically and architecturally. By 1937, Eriksson’s design for the Thuleheset Commercial Building in Gothenburg demonstrated the sturdy, rational functionalism that would typify his long architectural career. Notable among his later works is Stockholm’s Folksamhuset, the tallest building in Sweden at the time of its completion in 1959.

Robin Boyd is not known to have met Eriksson, but visited Gothenberg’s Concert Hall, the adjacent Götaplatsen, and the Thulehuset commercial building while visiting the city in 1950.