The Million Homes Programme: a review of the great Swedish planning project

Abstract The first decades of the post‐war era saw a large and quickly growing need for new housing. In Sweden, rapid urbanization, growing prosperity and demands for higher housing standards led to years‐long housing queues. The housing shortage became a political liability for the ruling Social Democratic party. To end the housing shortage once and for all, the Swedish parliament decided that a million new dwellings should be built in the period 1965 to 1974 and this was achieved. When the Million Homes Programme, as it came to be called, had reached barely half‐way, the housing shortage was replaced by a housing surplus, partly caused by the rapid expansion of the housing stock and by the fact that economic growth gave way to stagnation. At the same time, criticism began to be heard about what some people perceived as uniform and poor architecture and, since then, the Million Homes Programme has never ceased to engage people and provoke debate. Most of the buildings and areas of this era have survived quite well with routine maintenance, but in several multifamily housing areas more thoroughgoing measures have been needed. The development patterns can be divided into six categories: everything from maintenance and conventional daily care to large‐scale turn‐around and demolition. The housing construction of the 'record years' is typical of its period in modern Swedish history. In the 1960s the ambition was to create an exemplary welfare state – many people no doubt imagined the best in the world – and for this ambition the spacious and ultramodern buildings of the Million Homes Programme were a fitting expression. Sweden had been transformed from a country with a housing shortage to a country with a housing surplus. Today, again facing considerable housing shortage in many growing cities, developing this large housing stock with care for its qualities and its residents, and learning from the mistakes where new developments are needed, are important tasks. Acknowledgements This paper is based on the book Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande (The 'record years' – an Era in Swedish Housing Construction), op. cit. 1. The book was the final report from a research project sponsored by the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences and led by Thomas Hall, professor of the Department of Art History at Stockholm University. The project also resulted in Lisbeth Söderqvist's PhD thesis, op. cit. 27. Also taking part in the project were Sonja Vidén, senior researcher in the Housing Renewal Research Group (BOOM) at the School of Architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm and Kristian Berg, currently head of the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. The present essay is the joint responsibility of Thomas Hall and Sonja Vidén. It should be stressed that the authors have benefited greatly from Berg's and Söderqvist's contributions to Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande during the work with the present paper. The article has been translated by Alan Crozier. Notes * Thomas Hall is professor and chairman of the Department of Art History at Stockholm University. His main research interest is the history of urban planning. He has been responsible for a number of research projects and published extensively on urban development and design, including a number of articles and two books in English, Planning and Urban Growth in the Nordic Countries (London: Spon, 1991) and Planning Europe's Capitals: Aspects of Nineteenth‐Century Urban Development (London: Spon, 1997). He has previously been a review editor of Planning Perspectives. Sonja Vidén is an architect and senior researcher/lecturer in the Housing Renewal Research Group (BOOM) at the School of Architecture at the Royal University of Technology, Stockholm. Her main research interest is housing and the conditions for careful renovation and development of housing neighbourhoods. She has been responsible for several research projects concerning the housing stock and renovation of housing areas from the 1920s to the 1970s. Several works have formed a basis for governmental regulations and renovation guidelines. She has presented a number of papers at international conferences. 1. The recently published book High‐rise housing in Europe. Current trends and future prospects, edited by Richard Turkington, Ronald van Kempen and Frank Wassenberg (Housing and Urban Policy Studies 28. Delft: DUP Science, 2004), gives an overview of high‐rise housing estates and their development in 15 European countries. In the book, high‐rise housing estates are defined as distinct and discrete geographical housing areas dominated by residential blocks of five or more storeys. It should be noticed that the study focuses explicitly on high‐rise housing. 2. Concerning Swedish housing areas, the term 'large‐scale' is used here to characterize areas developed as a whole with mainly identical buildings, and of a considerable size in relation to the urban district where they are situated. The majority of them are not high‐rise housing estates. In most cases, the number of dwellings does not exceed 1500. 'Social housing', specially built for low‐income households, was rejected from the late 1940s. Instead, special subsidies were, and are, directed to low‐income households in all forms of housing, to enable them to live in good dwellings of proper size relative to the size of the household. The target set in the 1940s for housing construction was also formulated in the government bill 1967:100: 'The entire population will be given healthy, spacious, well‐planned, and appropriately equipped homes of good quality at reasonable cost'. 3. In the report Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande (Karlskrona: Boverket The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, 1999) there is an essay by Kristian Berg, Miljonprogrammet som forskningsfält (The million programme as a research field) and a detailed bibliography. Of the extensive literature, particular mention should be made of Funktionalismens genombrott och kris: Svensk bostadsbyggande 1930–1980 (Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, 1980), also available in German as Aufbruch und Krise des Funktionalismus (Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, 1976). Here Bengt O. H. Johansson examines the million programme in a nuanced way. Johan Rådberg is more explicitly critical in a series of works, such as his doctoral dissertation Doktrin och täthet i svenskt stadsbyggande (Doctrine and density in Swedish urban construction). Stockholm: Statens råd för byggnadsforskning, 1988. In 1996 the Swedish Museum of Architecture devoted its annual to the million programme – En miljon bostäder (A million homes). This contains a large number of short essays. Sveriges Allmännyttiga Bostadsföretag (SABO), a confederation of public utility housing companies, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary by publishing a history: Klas Ramberg, Allmännyttan – Välfärdsbygge 1850–2000 (Public utility – Welfare building 1850–2000). Stockholm: Byggförlaget, 2000. This paints a good background to studies of the million programme. Numerous facts about the background are also available in the two publications by Carl Ekbrant, Bostadsfrågan: Markanvändning, byggande, byggnadsväsende och bostadsförsörjning (The housing issue: Land use, construction, building system and housing provision) Stockholm: Statens råd för byggnadsforskning, 1979; and Miljonprogrammet i bostadsbyggandet, fortsättningen på 1946 års program (The programme to build a million homes, continuation of the 1946 programme). Gävle: Swedish Institute for Building Research, 1983. Claes Caldenby (ed.), Att bygga ett land: 1900‐talets svenska arkitektur (Building a country: Twentieth‐century Swedish architecture) (Stockholm: Byggforskningsrådet, 1998) should also be mentioned, along with Sonja Vidén and Gunilla Lundahl (eds), Miljonprogrammets bostäder: Bevara – förnya – förbättra (Homes of the million programme: Preserve – renew – improve) (Stockholm: Statens råd för byggnadsforskning, 1992), briefly summarized in English in Sonja Vidén, Rehabilitation of Large‐Scale Multi‐family Housing Areas in Sweden: Learning from Experience, in Anne Vernez Moudon and Wayne Attoe (eds) Urban Design: Reshaping our Cities (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995). When it comes to improving and renewing the housing areas of the 'record years', there are great many research reports and other works, only in exceptional cases translated into English or other languages. A relatively fresh account is by Sonja Vidén and Marina Botta, The Transformation of Large Postwar Housing Areas in Sweden: Adaptation to a Blend of New and Old Planning Ideas, in Kiril Stanlov and Brenda Case Sheer (eds) Suburban Form: An International Perspective (London: Routledge, 2003). An important foundation for the present essay is a methodological pioneer study from 1985, which assembled a statistical selection of apartment blocks representative of the entire country. This allows the opportunity to draw reasonably valid conclusions about the design of the buildings and about deficiencies and qualities in a functional perspective. No comparable study exists, to the authors' knowledge, at least not in the Nordic countries. This comprehensive statistical sample survey is presented by Sonja Vidén, Klas Schönning and Kerstin Nöre in Flerbostadshusen i Sverige: Ombyggnadsbehov och möjligheter (Multi‐family buildings in Sweden: Rebuilding needs and opportunities). Stockholm: Statens råd för byggnadsforskning, 1985. The survey has been used as a basis in several scientific studies of Swedish housing types and rebuilding methods, and also for government renovation/rebuilding policies. 4. An early work in international terms was edited by Anthony Sutcliffe, Multi‐Storey Living: The British Working‐Class Experience. London: Croom Helm, 1974. A major work is by Miles Glendinning and Stefan Muthesius, Tower Block: Modern Public Housing in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994. 5. A basic comparative study is the work by Anne Power, Estates on the Edge: The Social Consequences of Mass Housing in Northern Europe. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1997 reprint 1999. Her work, based on 20 mass housing estates built mainly in the 1960s and 1970s in France, Germany, Denmark, Ireland and Britain, focuses on social, economic and administrative developments, though, not so much on the architectural design of the buildings. Since the estates were chosen as well‐known examples of difficult‐to‐manage social housing, they cannot be seen as representative of the total multi‐family building stock from that time, even if they include buildings of different sizes, from industrially produced single‐family houses to very high‐rise blocks. It may be mentioned in this context that the ENHR (European Network for Housing Research) has for several years had a special working group on 'large‐scale housing', mainly with the same focus. The book referred to in note 1, edited by three leading persons of that group, gives a comparatively broad survey of the European high‐rise housing of the 1960s and 1970s. 6. See Kristian Berg, op. cit. 3, p. 24. 7. A new and substantial mark of the changing attitude towards the architecture of the Million Homes Programme is the extensive inventory and documentation of post‐war buildings and areas in the three big cities Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg, carried through 1999–2001 under the leadership of the National Heritage Board. The inventory was financed by funds from the Storstadssatsningen (Big Cities Venture), a governmental programme primarily aimed at strengthening and developing problematic post‐war suburbs. The documentation is saved in the public building register of the National Heritage Board, and partly published, in Bostadsmiljöer i Malmö. Del 1: 1945–1955, Del 2: 1955–1965, Del 3: 1965–1975 (Housing Environments in Malmö). Malmö: Länsstyrelsen Skåne Län and in Hallå bostad – bostadsbyggande i Storstockholm 1961–75 (Hello Dwelling – Housing Production in Greater Stockholm 1961–75). Stockholm: Länsstyrelsen i Stockholms Län, 2004. 8. This section is based mainly on Sonja Vidén, Rekordårens bostadsbyggande, in Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande (op. cit. 3, pp. 31ff.). Detailed construction drawings and facts about representative housing types can be found in Cecilia Björk, Per Kallstenius and Laila Reppen, Så byggdes husen 1880–2000 (How houses were built 1880–2000). Stockholm: Formas, 2001. 9. The official statistics include different populations; here the number of dwellings in multi‐family blocks includes dwellings in non‐residential and special residential buildings. 10. In connection with the planning of the suburbs of Järvafältet, the City Planning Office of Stockholm published a programme where standards for dwellings, house types, traffic and parking, schools and other kinds of public service were discussed and recommended: Planstandard 1965. Stadskollegiets utlåtanden och memorial, bihang 51 (Planning Standards 1965). Stockholm: City Council acts, 1965. Some years later it was followed by a still more comprehensive programme: Planfaktorer 70 (Planning Factors 70). Stockholm: Stockholms stadbyggnadskontor, 1970. The overall guide for traffic planning was called SCAFT, Riktlinjer för stadsplanering med hänsyn till trafiksäkerhet (Guidelines for Urban Planning with regard to Traffic Security). Stockholm: Statens planverk publikation 13, 1968. The guidelines were developed by a research group at the Department of Town Planning at the University of Chalmers, Gothenburg. 11. The data about materials, constructions etc. are based on Bostads‐ och byggnadsstatistisk årsbok, 1980 (Yearbook of Housing and Building Statistics, 1980). Stockholm: National Central Bureau of Statistics (SCB), 1980; and on the statistic sample survey Flerbostadshusen i Sverige. Ombyggnadbehov och möjligheter (Multi‐family Buildings in Sweden. Rebuilding Needs and Opportunities) (See note 2). 12. Standardization and norms, based on scientific studies of domestic work and living habits, directed the space and equipment standard of the dwellings. The official guidelines God Bostad, i dag och i morgon (Good Dwellings, Today and Tomorrow). Stockholm: The Royal Board of Housing, 1960, 1964, had to be fulfilled as a condition for obtaining the favourable state loans. 13. A good picture of the single‐family housing of this period is given by Leif Jonsson in his doctoral thesis: Från egnahem till villa. Enfamiljshuset i Sverige 1950–1980 (From Owner‐occupied House to Detached House). Stockholm: Liber Print, 1985. The distribution of house types can be gathered from Folk‐och bostadsräkningen 1975 (Population and Housing Census 1975). Stockholm: SCB, 1977. 14. This section on the debate in the journals is a summary of one of Kristian Berg's contributions to Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande (op. cit. 3, pp. 59ff.). 15. Ibid. (pp. 71ff.). 16. Ibid. (pp. 79ff.). 17. In Sweden complete buildings with a total of about 21 000 flats constructed in the 'record years' had been demolished by the end of 2002 and perhaps a further 1000 or so flats had vanished through 'partial' demolition. This corresponds to 2–3% of what was built. In addition, a considerable number of buildings and flats have been converted into offices, accommodation for people in care, etc. 18. This section on the care and change of built‐up areas is a summary of one of Sonja Vidén's contributions to Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande (op. cit. 3, pp. 133ff.). 19. This was examined in a joint research study of several housing regeneration projects carried through in the 1980s: Sonja Vidén, Ingela Blomberg, Eva Hurtig, Annita Schéele and Eva Öresjö (eds), Bättre bostadsförnyelse (Better housing regeneration). Karlskrona: Boverket (The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning), 1990. 20. A unique documentation of the outdoor environment and its development and improvement in several housing areas all over Sweden has been carried through over the years by Thomas Schlyter, in systematic investigations and photographic documentation, and in project reports: Vistelseytornas utformning i 38 bostadsområden (Outdoor environments in 38 housing areas). Gävle: SIB M78:9, 1978; Miljöförbättringar i 1969 års bostadsområden (Improvements of the outdoor environment in housing areas of 1969). Gävle: SIB M85:22, 1985; Utemiljöförbättringar. Översikt och exempelsamling (Improvements of the outdoor environment. Overview and examples). Stockholm: BFR R28:1994, 1994. 21. Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande (pp. 163ff). 22. Ibid. (pp. 166ff). 23. Ibid. (pp. 171ff). 24. Ibid. (pp 176ff). 25. Ibid. (180ff). 26. Ibid. (pp. 185ff). 27. This issue is examined by Lisbeth Söderqvist in her contribution to the project report Rekordåren – en epok i svenskt bostadsbyggande (op. cit. 3), based on studies of two housing estates, Täby Centrum in Täby municipality and Västra Orminge in Nacka municipality. In her doctoral dissertation Rekordår och miljonprogram: Flerfamiljshus i stor skala ('record years' and Million Homes Programme: Multi‐family blocks on a large scale) (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 1999). she also deals with Västra Flemingsberg in Huddinge municipality from the same point of view. 28. Brian Clark, Can you hear me at the back? London: Amber Lane Press, 1979, p. 10. 29. See, primarily, J. Rådberg, op. cit. 3. 30. Anne Power, op. cit. 5, paints a gloomy picture of the 20 housing estates in her special study: poor environments, lacking visual stimuli and pleasing features right from the beginning. A comparable picture is found in High‐rise Housing in Europe, op. cit. 1 but the greater breadth of that study – considering not only 'problem areas' but also large‐scale building in general – also shows great differences in the original conditions and later development of the projects. In Sweden, several researchers have studied, and contributed to the discussions about, the development of especially problematic areas. A comprehensive description and discussion is to be found in Eva Öresjö, Att vända utvecklingen (Reversing downward development). Stockholm: Sabo, 1996. 31. These reflections should be regarded as a preliminary, tentative hypothesis. The authors' opinion, of course, cannot be proved or falsified without extensive empirical research. Nevertheless, comparative discussions cannot always stop and wait until complete data are collected some time in the future. 32. 'Social engineering' has been discussed by several researchers: see, especially, Yvonne Hirdman, Att lägga livet till rätta (Putting life in order). Stockholm: Carlsson, 1989. How housing needs were calculated is described in Ingrid Dalén's and Lennart Holm's Bättre bostäder (Better housing, a summary of the report by the Housing Construction Commission). SOU 1965:32, Höjd bostadsstandard. Stockholm: Prisma, 1965. Additional informationNotes on contributorsTHOMAS HALL * Thomas Hall is professor and chairman of the Department of Art History at Stockholm University. His main research interest is the history of urban planning. He has been responsible for a number of research projects and published extensively on urban development and design, including a number of articles and two books in English, Planning and Urban Growth in the Nordic Countries (London: Spon, 1991) and Planning Europe's Capitals: Aspects of Nineteenth‐Century Urban Development (London: Spon, 1997). He has previously been a review editor of Planning Perspectives. SONJA VIDÉN Sonja Vidén is an architect and senior researcher/lecturer in the Housing Renewal Research Group (BOOM) at the School of Architecture at the Royal University of Technology, Stockholm. Her main research interest is housing and the conditions for careful renovation and development of housing neighbourhoods. She has been responsible for several research projects concerning the housing stock and renovation of housing areas from the 1920s to the 1970s. Several works have formed a basis for governmental regulations and renovation guidelines. She has presented a number of papers at international conferences.