Stockholm International Exhibition (1930)
Encyclopedia
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, that had a great impact on the architectural styles known as Functionalism
Functionalism (architecture)
Functionalism, in architecture, is the principle that architects should design a building based on the purpose of that building. This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a matter of confusion and controversy within the profession, particularly in regard to modern...
and International Style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
.
The fair was conducted by the City of Stockholm and the Svenska Slöjdföreningen (which has evolved into the existing organization, Swedish Form) art society. The art historian and leader of the Svenska Slöjdföreningen, Gregor Paulsson, was the intellectual leader of the fair, inspired, after a visit to the 1927 Weissenhof Estate
Weissenhof Estate
The Weissenhof Estate is a housing estate built for exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927...
in Stuttgart, to organize a similar event for Stockholm.
It took place from May through September 1930, on the southern portion of the Djurgården recreation area in eastern-central Stockholm, and entertained about four million visitors.
The exhibition's slogan was: Acceptera!, or Accept!, literally a plea for acceptance of functionalism, standardization, and mass production as a cultural change. The effort to persuade Swedish citizens of the benefits of a modernized lifestyle included serving mass-produced food.
Architecture
The fair was significant in the history of architecture in StockholmCulture in Stockholm
Apart from being a large city with an active cultural life, Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, houses many national cultural institutions. There are two UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Stockholm County area: the Royal Palace Drottningholm and the Skogskyrkogården .Stockholm was the 1998 European...
, firmly establishing functionalism
Functionalism (architecture)
Functionalism, in architecture, is the principle that architects should design a building based on the purpose of that building. This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a matter of confusion and controversy within the profession, particularly in regard to modern...
as the dominant architectural style in Sweden.
The two head architects were Gunnar Asplund
Gunnar Asplund
Erik Gunnar Asplund was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a key representative of Nordic Classicism of the 1920s, and during the last decade of his life as a major proponent of the modernist style which made its breakthrough in Sweden at the Stockholm International Exhibition...
and Sigurd Lewerentz
Sigurd Lewerentz
Sigurd Lewerentz . He was an architect, but initially trained as a mechanical engineer at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg . Later he took up an architectural apprenticeship in Germany...
. Through the 1920s Asplund had been one of the principal figures of the Neo-Classicist Swedish Grace style. But here, in 1930, Asplund's style takes a dramatic turn into stripped-down functionalism. Especially conspicuous was the Paradise Cafe and the Entry Pavilion, with its exposed steel frame, airy expanses of glass, and dramatically lit at night. Above the fair a towering advertising mast stood with an electrically lit version of Lewerentz's "Flying V" logo.
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
had been invited to contribute to the fair, but declined.
The fair also showcased new housing alternatives, bright and hygenic apartments with ample space for all members of the family. Swedish architects involved in the Housing Exhibition included Sven Markelius
Sven Markelius
Sven Gottfrid Markelius was one of the most important modernist Swedish architects. Markelius played an important role in the post-war urban planning of Stockholm, for example in the creation of the model suburb of Vällingby .Born in Stockholm in October 1889, he attended the Royal Institute of...
, Paul Hedqvist
Paul Hedqvist
Paul Hedqvist was a Swedish modernist architect with many official commissions in Sweden through the 1930s, including housing projects, major bridges, many schools, and urban planning work. His practice evolved into designing office towers and at least one major stadium in the postwar 1950s...
, Nils Ahrbom, Helge Zimdal, and Uno Åhrén
Uno Åhrén
Uno Åhrén was a Swedish architect and city planner, and a leading proponent of Functionalism in Sweden....
. Some critics found the architecture too crisp and cold to consider living with permanently. Three of the fair's architects were, in the following year, co-authors of the Acceptera! functionalist manifesto.
Alvar Aalto
Alvar Aalto
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware...
, describing the exhibition for the Finnish press, wrote, "The exhibition speaks out for joyful and spontaneous everyday life. And consistently propagates a healthy and unpretentious lifestyle based on economic realities."
Impact
All of the fair buildings were temporary. But the fair's ideas lived on and influenced the shape of Swedish housing for years to come.As early as 1931 one of the exhibition architects, Uno Åhrén
Uno Åhrén
Uno Åhrén was a Swedish architect and city planner, and a leading proponent of Functionalism in Sweden....
, won the commission of the terraced settlement in North Ängby in Bromma
Bromma borough
Bromma is a so called borough in the western part of Stockholm, Sweden, forming part of the Stockholm Municipality. Bromma is primarily made up of the parish with the same name, and the parish of Västerled...
, and in the outskirts of Stockholm, Traneberg (1937-38) and Hammarbyhöjden
Hammarbyhöjden
Hammarbyhöjden is a suburban city district in Stockholm, Sweden. The district is split across two boroughs: Most of it is located in Skarpnäck borough, the subdistrict Blåsut is located in the Enskede-Årsta-Vantör borough. As of December 31, 2007, Hammarbyhöjden had 8,143 inhabitants.The...
(1938), all apartments for large families. All houses had central heating; all apartments had a private bath / toilet and running hot and cold water, a fully equipped kitchen and a balcony. Large windows let light and air into the flats, the stairwell, there was even a rubbish chute, an adjoining greenspace, and a playground.
The largest and finest-preserved collection of early functionalist housing is the residential settlement Södra Ängby
Södra Ängby
Södra Ängby is a residential area blending functionalism with garden city ideals, located in western Stockholm, Sweden, forming part of the Bromma borough....
, Bromma. Södra Ängby consists of about 500 single-family homes during the years 1933 to 1939, all in the functionalist style. One of the earliest examples was the house architect Sven Markelius built for himself at Nockeby 1930–31.
These housing districts were directly influenced by the 1930 fair, were designed by the same architects, and were built around cooperative Social Democrats values. Social housing was, in turn, were a significant element in the development of the Swedish idea of Folkhemmet
Folkhemmet
Folkhemmet is a political concept that played an important role in the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Swedish welfare state. It is also sometimes used to refer to the long period between 1932-76 when the Social democrats were in power and the concept was put into practice...
.
Åhrén was to collaborate with the sociologist, reformer and Nobel Prize winner Gunnar Myrdal
Gunnar Myrdal
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the...
from 1932 though 1935 on a social housing commission, and in 1934 they co-authored The Housing Question as a Social Planning Problem, a work that would prove influential in the structuring of the Social Democratic Swedish society. Markelius and the Swedish reformer Alva Myrdal
Alva Myrdal
Alva Myrdal was a Swedish sociologist and politician. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. She married Gunnar Myrdal in 1924....
collaborated on a design for a 57-unit communal-living Collective House in the center of Stockholm, in 1935. and Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson
Per Albin Hansson
Per Albin Hansson , was a Swedish politician, chairman of the Social Democrats from 1925 and two-time Prime Minister in four governments between 1932 and 1946, governing all that period save for a short-lived crisis in the summer of 1936, which he ended by forming a coalition government with his...
, who coined the word Folkhemmet, himself moved into an Åhrén-designed functionalist house in 1936.