An influential Swedish architect who helped introduce modernist architecture to Sweden, Sven Markelius was born in Stockholm in 1889. He studied at KTH Royal Institute of Technology before an apprenticeship under Ragnar Östberg. Markelius’ early work was influenced by the Bauhaus movement and Le Corbusier’s modernist principles, and he took part as Swedish representative at the first International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) in 1928. In 1931 he collaborated on the Modernist manifesto ‘Acceptera’, and was later appointed to the Board of Design for the UN Headquarters in New York (1947). Markellius’ design for his own home in Nockeby (1930) was an early example of functionalism in Swedish residential design, as was the nearby Villa Myrdal (1937) that he designed for influential social reformers Alva and Gunnar Myrdal. Outside of architecture Markellius applied his modernist principles to furniture and textile design, as evidenced in his design for the Nockeby Table in his own home. From 1944 to 1954 Markelius served as the Head of Stockholm City Planning - in this role he oversaw the development of Vällingby, an early satellite town that paired a transit-oriented civic centre with point-block residential towers, surrounded by low-rise apartment buildings in a naturalistic urban setting.

Robin Boyd visited several Markelius-design places in and around Stockholm in 1950, including Villa Myrdal (1937), the Stockholm Builder’s Association (1937). In 1968, Boyd wrote about the Markelius-designed Vällingby cluster in Stockholm, praising  its sense of order and the organised continuity of its urban design.