HOUSING IN SWEDEN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 244, 16 October 1939, Page 3

HOUSING IN SWEDEN

“AX ARCHITEC TI RE OF THE PEOPLE” In Sweden, winch is reputed to be one ot the most progressive countries in the world, much intelligent atten Lion is given to housing the people “The essential sanity of (he Swedes in their approach to building” is the subject ot an article by Max Lock n. the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. “Sweden is the country where we expect to find the environment of an informed and cultured democracy, producing an architecture of the people for the people,” he writes. "Buildings that are not mere ‘rational' and ‘organic’ (the well-worn qualities of contemporary eliteness', but whicn above all things are personal and simply serve their human anil social purpose, now, without any effort to become great or contemporary. "Much of their architecture happens to be great because that people have been properly educated at school to discriminate between good and bad, and Io demand the best. It is the people who are great. As great as their bufdings. “What is it that has made Iho Swedes so integrated that we envy them? Not only is their architecture free from extraneous crudeness, s.< that they shave off the more shameful excrescences of their 19th. century Parliament building, while we spend 11,000,000 to replace them on ours, but also they have trimmed thensystems of administration to slick and smooth-working proportions. “The new buildings are designed to grace their environment, not to intrude upon it. In the first place, great care and thought is given to the proper siting of the blocks, to the preservation of trees and green playing spaces, and to right spacing to obtain sun and view to all principal rooms. And when the buildings arc actually complete, their simple masses of white rendered brickwork, the rhythm of projecting balconies ana low-pitched roofs of felt, tiles or galvanised sheet iron, all provide a pleasing foil for the slanting shadows of the firs and birches that stand round them on the rocky ground. “One of the most noticeable qualities in these Swedish housing blocks is their designers’ ability to provide uniform and well-spaced window units, for they are not afflicted with a sanitary code which insists that w.c's, and bathrooms should back on to outside walls, with all that this brings in the form of external vent pipes and odd-sized windows. Bathrooms and w.c's, may be grouped in the centre of a building so long as they are ventilated by their own central air shaft and discharge their drains down another duct internally and out beneath the building to the sewer in the street. External walls are freed for windows, light and air which facilitates the achievement of good wall texture and right proportion, and a simple arcili-1’ tcctural expression."