Uno Åhrén was a Swedish architect and city planner, and a leading proponent of Functionalism in Sweden.

In 1930 Ahren was one of the designers for the Housing Exhibition of the Stockholm International Exhibition

Stockholm International Exhibition (1930)

The Stockholm Exhibition was an exhibition held in 1930 in Stockholm, Sweden, that had a great impact on the architectural styles known as Functionalism and International Style....

, and in 1931 he was one of the six co-authors of the Acceptera!, or Accept!, manifesto, a plea for acceptance of functionalism, standardization, and mass production as a cultural change in Sweden.

Åhrén collaborated with the sociologist, reformer and Nobel Prize

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, but officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel , is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, generally regarded as one of the...

 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, the 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...

. In fact 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.

From 1947 through 1963 he served as Professor of City Planning for the Technical University at Stockholm.

Work

• Student Union at the Royal Institute of Technology, 1928-1930, with 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...
  
  
• Ford Motor Company, Stockholm, 1930–31
• Flamman Soundfilm Theatre, Hornstull, Stockholm, 1930
• Terrace houses in Norra Ängby, Bromma 1931–40
• Chief City Planner for Gothenburg
  Gothenburg
  Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
  
  , 1932–1943
• Årsta centrum, Stockholm 1943–53
• Chief for the housing cooperative Riksbyggen 1943–1945

See also

• Social engineering (political science)
  Social engineering (political science)
  Social engineering is a discipline in political science that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups. In the political arena, the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering.For various reasons,...