Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - II. The Swedish People - 3. National Character and Social Conditions. Introd. by [G. Sundbärg] J. Asproth - Dwellings. By [G. Sundbärg] Carl G. Bergsten
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DWELLINGS.
181
but high houses of flats; lliis has barred a return to normal conditions,
unless by violently upsetting the values of real property. The new
Buildings Statute for Swedish towns which is now being drawn up, endeavours
to put a stop to these evils, by dividing the towns into different groups
with respect to legal height of buildings.
The result of all this is that in the towns houses are built exclusively
for letting purposes; private houses do not exist, if we except a few
belonging to the very wealthiest, and certain gratifying results of the
modern town plan, which are referred to below.
The natural effect of this policy was that at the end of the nineties
one villa suburb after the other sprung up in the vicinity of Stockholm:
this being the only possibility then existing for the middle classes to
procure houses of their own; moreover, the gradual disappearance of all
greenery from the towns, and the congestion of the population in them,
have impelled numbers to look about for residences freely situated in
more rural districts. That the villa suburbs have been in great request, is
proved by the fact that there are over fifty of them in the immediate
vicing of Stockholm; the most notable are Djursholm, Saltsjöbaden, and
Lidingö.
In the villa suburbs the "open" style of building, in which each house stands
apart, has been almost exclusively adopted. The buildings are generally
constructed in two stories over a basement, the ground floor being reserved for
living rooms and service quarters, and the upper floor for bedrooms. The two floors
communicate with each other through a hall with a staircase, in
contradistinction from the older type of house, the small manor-house, referred to above,
with which these residences otherwise have much in common.
These buildings are generally made of wood, on a granite foundation; the
roof is mostly covered with tiles. The size of the houses ranges from the small
four- or five-roomed villa to the mansion with twelve to fifteen rooms; there
are even large residences, substantially built, and luxuriously equipped.
The growth of the villa surburbs proved a powerful stimulus to the
larger towns to introduce neiv modes of building, in order to check the
outflow of the population from the town into the suburbs. The town
plan was revised, and special districts were set apart for different types
of modern buildings. In lieu of the high houses with their broad streets,
certain quarters are reserved exclusively for residential purposes, and are
planned with narrower streets for low houses, intended only for one family.
There are two distinct types: the "open" style of building with detached
houses situated in comparatively large grounds, as in the villa suburbs;
and the ’’closed" style, houses in roivs, built gable to gable, in order to
economize building ground and obtain cheap dwellings. There are also
combinations of these stjdes, in which the houses are built together in
pairs, or in larger groups, in fours, fives, sixes, and so forth. As
regards Stockholm, the closed style of building has been adopted in the new
quarter popularly called "Lärkstaden", where the street names are taken
from different species of larks; the open style is employed in the new
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