Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Swedish architecture
The all-encompassing Swedish preoccupation with
design
and the
importance attached to the way buildings interact with their wider
environment have provided Sweden with a remarkable wealth of buildings,
both domestic and commercial, during the past century. Despite this,
planning for a perceived shortage of affordable housing has also meant that
almost every town of any size is blighted with a plethora of faceless postwar
apartment blocks which can look more Soviet than Scandinavian. To get the
most out of Sweden's hugely rich architectural history, it's invariably worth
seeking out the historic heart of a settlement - from small country towns to
larger commercial cities.
There are rich pickings in terms of
Romanesque
and
Gothic
buildings, particularly
ecclesiastical and royal ones, and the number of
Renaissance
and
Baroque
buildings is
quite remarkable. But Sweden's architectural heritage is not always so grand; the more
vernacular constructions - from rural cottages to fishermen's homes - provide a
fascinating insight into how Swedes have lived and worked for centuries.
Prehistoric buildings
Discussion of
prehistoric
building in Sweden is mostly a matter of conjecture, for the
only structures to have survived from before 1100 are ruined or fragmentary. The most
impressive structures of
Bronze Age
Sweden are the numerous grassy burial barrows
and the coastal burial sites (particularly apparent on the island of Gotland) that feature
huge boulders cut into the shapes of a prow and stern. One of the best known of the
latter type is at
Ales Stennar
on the South Skåne coast - a Swedish Stonehenge set
above windy cliffs.
More substantial are the
Iron Age
dwellings from the
Celtic
period (c. 500 BC to
800 AD). The best example of a fortification from this era is at
Ismantorp
on the Baltic
island of Öland. Dating from the fifth century AD, this remarkable site has limestone
walls up to fifteen feet high and some eighty foundations arranged into quarters, with
streets radiating like spokes of a wheel.
From the remnants of pre-Christian-era houses, a number of dwelling types can be
identified. The open-hearth hall, for example, was a square house with an opening in
the roof ridge by which light entered and smoke exited. The two-storey gallery house
had an open upper loft reached via an exterior stair, while the post larder was a house
on stilts allowing for ventilation and protection from vermin.
Romanesque to Gothic
The Christianization of Sweden is dated from 1008, the year St Sigfrid is said to have
baptized King Olof. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Church and the monastic
orders were the driving force behind the most significant building projects, with the
most splendid example of Romanesque architecture being
Lund cathedral
. Consecrated
in 1145, when Lund was the largest town in Scandinavia and the archiepiscopal see,
this monumental building was designed as a basilica with twin western towers, and
boasts some tremendously rich carvings in the apsidal choir and vast crypt. The chief
centre of Romanesque church building, however, was the royal town of
Sigtuna
to the
