Göran Rygert is a Swedish architect, born in the province of Småland, Sweden in 1935. In 1961 he earned a Master of Architecture at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg. After 20 years with Skanska, he started his own architect’s office in Lidingö, near Stockholm. In 1993 he moved to Atlanta, GA and married Janet, whom he had met two years earlier. He has two sons from a previous marriage: Patrik, civil engineer and Niklas, opera singer.

Göran has also been active in the music and publishing areas. For many years he worked as a freelance editor for Warner/Chappell Music Scandinavia AB, in Stockholm. There he wrote and edited more than 20 songbooks. Additionally, he has written 17 other books, printed by other publishers.

He has been busy composing and arranging, as well as playing his string bass and other instruments in various groups – frequently at concert with various Swedish ballad-singers. In 2004 he produced a CD, “Visituder”, with his own music to the lyrics by famous Swedish poets and performed by some of Sweden’s foremost song and ballad singers.

In the 1980’s he carried out an extensive research, together with an old childhood friend, about the folk music on the Swedish island of “Öland”, in the Baltic Sea. It resulted in the book “Öland’s Folk Songs and Melodies Of All Time”.

In 1996 he founded the Swedish men’s chorus “Vasa Drängar” in Atlanta, and was its musical leader for 25 years. The group is still very active.

In 1994, after moving to Atlanta, he started a comprehensive study of the architects who emigrated from Sweden to the United States – born in Sweden before the year 1900. After two years of traveling to many states, contacting and visiting about 70 archives, libraries and museums, he printed a small number of the research report “Svenska Arkitekter i USA 1846 – 1930”. But it was not until in 2025 that he found a publisher – American Publishers Inc. and was able to get this book printed, now in English, quite enlarged and with many more architects included. The book, “Swedish Architects in the United States”, was published in December 2025.

Göran has received several awards, such the Royal Gustav Adolf Academy Award; Lion’s Cultural Award; the Kalmar County Cultural Award; the Swedish Council of America Award of Merit and the Nordic Lodge of the Vasa Order of America Recognition.