Page 28 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Sweden

26  INTRODUCING SWEDEN

Sweden’s Wooden Houses
The quintessential image of Sweden is the red-and-white
painted wooden cottage. Originally, wooden houses were not
considered attractive so they were painted red to make them
look as though they were built of brick, or yellow to represent
stone, and this tradition has continued. Every building from
the humblest hut to the most majestic mansion was made
of timber from the large tracts of forest. Wood triumphs in
the grandiose manor houses of Hälsingland and the Bell Tower
Many 18th-century
decoratively carved merchants’ homes of the Stockholm churches had wooden bell
Archipelago. Even today, architects are developing innovative towers: Delsbo’s, with its
ways of using this classic material. elegant onion cupola,
dates from 1742.
Interlocking posts bind
together the external and
interior walls, while the façades
are often boarded.

Hut in Härjedalen
This simple log-built hut in the mountain
pasture of Ruändan incorporates the
centuries-old tradition of a grass roof.

Skogaholm Manor
Built in the 1680s, this Carolean timber house from
Närke was originally painted red. In the 1790s, it was
given a yellow plaster façade and large windows in
line with Gustavian style. It has now been moved
to the museum at Skansen. Halsingland’s Manor Houses
Reaping the benefits from the lucrative
19th-century timber industry, the forest-
The façade is clad in owning farmers of Hälsingland built
pine and painted with
a copper-vitriol paint, themselves extravagant manor houses.
known as Falun Red, The size of house and magnificence of the
to prevent rotting. painted portico reflected the owner’s
wealth and status. The interiors were often
decorated with wall paintings.

Societetshuset
Decorative wooden
buildings, such as this club
Swedenborg’s Pavilion house for wealthy visitors to
The miniature manor the seaside town of
house of philosopher Marstrand (see p220), were a
Emanuel Swedenborg feature of the fashionable
(1688–1772). It is now west coast bathing resorts
at Skansen (see p98). in the late 19th century.

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