Functionalism

White boxes on columns with ribbon windows and flat roofs – architecture for a new age.

Modernism wanted to start again from scratch: industrial materials and methods, light and air for everyone, and no unnecessary decoration. With a load-bearing frame of concrete or steel, the wall was free to be opened up. Form was to follow function, and the house was seen as a machine for living in.

After the First World War architects wanted to build a new society with the help of industry. The Bauhaus in Germany, Le Corbusier in France and De Stijl in the Netherlands formulated the ideas. In Sweden Functionalism took on a social focus: better housing, schools and hospitals for all. The Stockholm Exhibition of 1930 and the manifesto acceptera made funkis the style of the folkhem.

Functionalism made its breakthrough with the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930. Funkis became the style of the folkhem, the Swedish welfare state: slab blocks, schools, hospitals and villas across the country.