Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts

The essays in this volume, translated for the first time into English, are three formative texts of the modern movement in Sweden from the turn of the 19th century to the 1930s.They chronicle the gradual move from a strong craft tradition towards an organic, naturalist and humanist strand of modernism so typical of the Nordic countries. Each of the texts is accompanied with well-researched introductions placing the pieces in their respective contexts.Modern Swedish DesignOf the three, Acceptera is by far the most interesting. Written by a collective consisting of Uno Åhrén, Gunnar Asplund, Wolter Gahn, Sven Markelius, Gregor Paulsson and Eskil Sundahl, it is a post facto manifesto in defense of the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930. This event, organised by Gregor Paulsson, director of the Swedish Arts & Crafts Association, was modelled after similar exhibitions of the German Werkbund, most notably the Weissenhof Siedlung in Stuttgart of 1927. It combined model dwellings and interiors with exhibitions of the latest arts and crafts developments. With its masterplan designed by Gunnar Asplund, it meant the breakthrough for modernism with a wider audience. Whereas the German strand of modernism was often seen as austere and clinical, the spirit of this exhibition was more joyful, and proved an ideal vehicle for the promotion of the Swedish welfare state.The text itself is a re-iteration of points made earlier in avant-garde magazines such as L'Esprit Nouveau, ABC and i10, although it misses their combative stance. It uses a humorous combination of image and text and is dense with meaning and allusions. Its optimism is contagious and leaves one filled with nostalgia for a future which never came to be. A future, in which housing is both affordable and beautiful, unaffected by class stigma, a future in which technology serves to solve the problems of man in the most efficient manner - a world without traffic jams.The challenge offered by these texts is not so much passive, as subjects for scholarly research, but active, so we may assess which issues are still topical and consider how much or how little we have really progressed.