One quarter of Sweden’s existing housing stock was built during the post war and late modernist period of 1965-74. In many ways, this time period was the culmination of Sweden as a welfare state with an outspoken ambition to serve its citizens from cradle to grave. Over one million units of housing were built during this ten year span which predictably became known as The Million Program Era. In order to achieve this level of production the processes were policy driven, highly rationalized and predominantly industrialized.
Positivistic planning prevailed and prefabrication came into the fore. Further, it was a period of an almost complete and utopian alignment of political interests, policy making, production models, planning ideals, and implementation of architectural research and education. In contrast to these rapid and deterministic processes, it was also a decade where experimentation excelled and the distance between research and the profession was extremely short. Ideas could be tested immediately and at a grand scale.
QC 20150526