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- Title
Transformationer av ett ädelt förflutet: Stockholms herrgårdar som vårdinstitutioner.
- Authors
Lange, Ulrich; Ulvsgärd, Sebastian
- Abstract
In the years around 1900, the outskirts of Stockholm were transformed in a way that greatly in- fluenced the form of the suburbs as we know them today. Historical narratives describe the growth of industry, garden suburbs and The Million programme on the urban fringe, areas that were often named after the manor houses and estates that preceded them. All this was made possible because the City bought large tracts of land. Tales of country houses are usually success stories involving barons, counts and countesses. Yet rarely do we hear how manors were often repurposed as institutions for the weakest members of society in the new emerging suburbs. As the privileges of the aristocracy were dismantled, their manor houses became a commodity, and between 1900 and 1940 the City acquired 23 such estates. The land was bought primarily as a reserve for the needs of the growing capital, but in no fewer than 13 cases, institutions were established at former manor houses. This article discusses three of these: Skarpnäck, Västberga and Årsta. Their reuse can be explained both in terms of how public healthcare was organised, and with regard to an increased need for hospitals and institutions. Other reasons include a shift in healthcare ideology that coincided with the acquisition of this land, whereby the vocabulary of the manor house, both in architectonic and structural terms, was considered ideal for certain forms of healthcare. Few measures were needed to adapt existing buildings to institutional requirements such as homeliness, isolation and order. In the post-war years, the institutions at Skarpnäck, Västberga and Årsta were upgraded to become modern, large-scale hospitals. The manor houses themselves were retained whereas other estate buildings were replaced by new structures, designed according to modernistic ideals by some of the leading architects of the era. The patients, whose time was previously spent gardening and farming, were now employed in workshops, according to the wellfare ideal of industrial Sweden. Until today, heritage classification of these manors has distinguished between the upperclass manor houses themselves and the healthcare buildings from the 1960s. Surviving medical features in manor houses were usually seen as separate entities of negligible heritage value. The narratives and ascribed significance of these places have remained surprisingly stable since they were acquired by the City of Stockholm. As a result, attitudes to them have changed little over the past century, which has hindered our ability to preserve and learn about these built environments and the people who once lived and worked there. Manor house institutions are in many ways important parts of the history of 20th-century Stockholm. Here, modern democratic ideals forcefully converge with those of the preceding class society. It is high time to broaden our view of the City of Stockholm's manor houses, whose healthcare buildings as a whole are integral, equally important components of the heritage environment.
- Subjects
STOCKHOLM (Sweden); MANOR houses; URBAN fringe; BUILT environment; REAL property acquisition; GROWTH industries; COUNTRY homes
- Publication
Bebyggelsehistorisk Tidskrift, 2021, Issue 80, p10
- ISSN
0349-2834
- Publication type
Article