The years around 1980 contained dynamic architectural discourse in Swedish history covering contradictory ideas all sharing the critique of functionalism. Revisiting the discussions today implies a reconsideration of the historiographical self-conception, the notion of a local history and its relations to a broader international stream of ideas. Two trajectories can be distinguished in this discussion. The first stresses formal expressions - like pastiche, play with historical elements, individualized forms - while the other focuses on social organizations, democratic processes and labour conditions. Through tracing the pre-history of these trajectories the intention is to show how aesthetic qualities overlap with politico-economical developments and strategies of democracy and user participation. The article has two purposes: the first is to revisit the late 1970s and the early 1980s to outline the early debates on postmodernism and the second is to shift gender and discuss the feminist movement, and its theoretical and practical implications. Through an inquiry into this turning point in Swedish architecture the article aims at reframing, or broadening, the postmodern narrative as well as reinterpreting the local discussions in relation to the global. The discourse of women's liberation, as well as other emancipatory movements, had a major impact on the postmodern movement at large and it is remarkable that this side of postmodernism is not yet fully formulated in relation to architectural history. In this article the women's movement in architecture is considered as a crucial part within the larger movement called postmodernism that influences the understanding of the movement itself.
QC 20160509