The new church of Ytterlännäs, a large Neo-Classical sermon church, was consecrated in 1854. The old, medieval church was far too small to house the growing number of visitors. It was therefore abandoned, but managed to be spared from demolition. A couple of decades into the twentieth century did the church once again become the object of the congregation's maintenance. It was restored and has been used for services since 1939.These abandoned churches are the subject of the present dissertation. The main aim of this thesis is answering such questions as: Why where the ancient churches abandoned? Why where they later restored and which individuals or groups advocated restoration? How where the projects realized? What guiding principles informed their work and how was the practical matter of restoration done? What values did the people involved see in the restored objects?The chapter Old and New Churches is a general introduction to the subject and certain aspects of the Neo-Classical churches are treated. The chapter entitled The Congregation and the Abandoned Churches deals with the situation from the perspective of the Swedish Lutheran Church, where the Young Church movement embraced a faith in the church as a force capable of cultural renewal, which resulted in a wider interest in preservation and restoration of the old churches. The chapter The Ideology of Restoration deals with how modern ideas about restoration were mediated from Europe to Sweden. Sigurd Curman presented the new antiquarian doctrine of restoration in two articles from 1905 and 1906. The chapter The Preservation of Cultural Monuments and the Abandoned Churches shows that the restorations was made possible by the fact that the responsible authorities possessed better tools for the successful completion of their task by this time.In the chapter Erik Salvén and the Abandoned Churches the man is introduced, that meant the most for the restoration of the churches which this thesis deals with. These are the subjects of the following five chapters: Trönö in Hälsingland, Alnö in Medelpad, Ragunda and Oviken in Jämtland and Ytterlännäs in Ångermanland. The results of this thesis are discussed and summarized in the last chapter, Interpreting the History of a Church. / digitalisering@umu

This essay aims to study and compare two religious movements in Tornedalen, Sweden, during two centuries. The Laestadian movement was founded by Lars Levi Laestadius during the 1840's in a, according to him, sinful society. Laestadius contributed to end a lot of the alcoholic abuse and also made the population a God-fearing people. Almost a century later, a man named Toivo Korpela stood up against the traditional laestadian norms and decided to preach his faith on his own. After a few years, the movement went in a new direction with the leadership of Sigurd Siikavaara. It turned into a sect, waiting for an arc to come down from heaven and take the chosen ones to the promised land. The purpose of this essay is both to compare the two movements, but also to examine the social, economical and political circumstances during the 1930's. Using the theory sociology of religion, I have discussed how the previously named factors were a contributing reason as to why people decided to join the movement, and also how it could evolve into a millenary movement.

This thesis is an investigation of St. Petri Church via relevant drawings and photographs by Sigurd Lewerentz. It explores his design through the Lutheran liturgy and theology revealing possibilities of an architecture based on spiritual harmony and bodily experience. It is an attempt to view Lewerentz's architecture outside limitations of style---demonstrating his spiritual belief in a harmony between both visible and invisible elements of architecture, as well as the act of making architecture through the relationship between drawing and building. Seen in such a context Lewerentz's work at St. Petri points to valuable strategies for the practice of architecture today.

En undersökning av den svenska bostadens historia från forntid (13 000 f. Kr.) fram till modernismens genombrott (1930 e. Kr.), indelad i fyra olika epoker. Projektets första del består av en genomgång av historien, som grundar sig på litteratur av främst arkitekten Erik Lundberg och etnologen Sigurd Erixon, samt analyser i diagramform av epokernas bostadstypologier. Undersökningen resulterar i fyra moderna enfamiljshus, som vardera representerar en av de fyra epokerna. / A study concerning the history of Swedish dwellings and typologies, 13000 B.C. – 1930 A.D., divided into four different eras.The first part of the project included reading literature, foremost by the architect Erik Lundberg and the ethnologist Sigurd Erixon, together with a diagrammatic analysis of examples of buildings representative of each era. The project resulted in the design of four modern single-family houses, each based on one of the four eras in the Swedish history.

No description available.

This study of the establishment of heritage preservation in Sweden during the first half of the 20th century focuses upon Sigurd Curman (1879-1966), art historian, restoration architect and Director of Antiquities. Its purpose is to show how an older, more research-oriented form of heritage work grew to become a more socially-conscious vari­ant of cultural preservation. The period of establishment embraces organizational inquiries, government legisla­tion and institutionalization, and as Director of Antiquities between 1923 and 1946, Curman was a main actor. He had already become a key figure in debates on the official organization of preservation activities in Sweden well before this, whose early career dealt chiefly with the restoration of churches. Curman advocated the accentuation of aspects of cultural history. An opinion had been formed among cultural historians and museum curators against what they perceived as the obsolete manner of pursuing heritage efforts conducted by the Royal Swedish Acad­emy of Letters, History and Antiquities and its secretary, the Director of Antiquities, who was also head of Swe­den's main official museum, the Museum of History. Criticism was aimed at all aspects of official heritage preservation efforts, including legislation, restoration policy, the care of ancient ruins and treatment of finds, as well as the lack of understanding on the behalf of the central authority for local and regional interests. The latter referred to the emotive aspects of heritage preservation, which in contemporary verbiage was summarized by the term "piety". The central authority was accussed of not understanding "popular" heritage preservation outside the context of the museum and of displaying a lack of piety toward "the cultural memory of the Fatherland". These feelings were based primarily on two prerequisites: an established perception of a homogeneous national culture with ancient roots in the past, and an apprehension that it was in the interests of society that the government become responsible for the administration of this material cultural heritage. This ambition can be summarized by the term "preservation of cultural heritage" and its foremost exponent was Sigurd Curman. The dissertation fol­lows Curman from his childhood in a wealthy Stockholm family, to his early career in restoration and as lecturer in architectural history at the College of Art. In 1912, Curman was appointed to the first chair in these fields estab­lished at the College, which he held until 1918 when he became advisor in the cultural history of architecture at the new Royal Swedish Board of Public Building. When appointed Director of Antiquities he began concretizing the official organization of heritage preservation. During the 1910s he participated in a comprehensive, dual inquiry into the organization and legislation of the government's heritage preservation policy. When its final report was presented in 1922 it was tabled, but still acted as the basis for Curman's continued efforts. He created a modem bureaucracy out of the council of the Department of Antiquities and contributed to moving the central authority from the ground floor of the National Museum to its own premises in midtown Stockholm. Curman would also work to improve legislation to protect cultural monuments and developed museum activities by creat­ing a countrywide organization of county antiquarians and regional museums. When Sweden's new antiquities law was passed by parliament in 1942, Curman had not only led the inquiry leading up to it, but had formulated the draft of the legislation himself. By the time of his retirement in 1946 he was a legend in antiquarian circles, the very personification of Swedish cultural heritage preservation. The present dissertation shows how Curman achieved this status, though it also details the efforts of numerous other actors participating in the process and sees Curman as a bureaucrat who realized demands for a renewal of heritage preservation in the country. / digitalisering@umu

A need for new churches arose in Sweden during the 1950’s when modern suburbs for the growing urban population were developed around the Swedish cities. Four architects, Peter Celsing, Sigurd Lewerentz, Hans Borgström and Bengt Lindroos, who were known for their profane modernist architecture, were commissioned to design three churches in Stockholm's new districts: S:t Tomas kyrka in Vällingby, St. Markuskyrkan in Björkhagen and Söderledskyrkan in Farsta and all were inaugurated in 1960.  The purpose of the essay is to investigate how the sacral textiles of the three modernist churches look like in the year of inauguration and how they related to their respective contexts in the form of the modernist church rooms 1960. The investigation is done with the help of the questions: How do the sacral textiles look like in the modernist neighborhood church? Why do they look the way they do? What has influenced their appearance and design? The questions are answered with the support of the theories Material Culture and the performativity theory, and the investigation is carried out using Material Culture as a method and the textile science documentation method. In order to be able to determine what modernity was in the contemporaneity of the sacral textiles, whimsical terms have been operationalized, which are taken from the contemporary literature that speaks about what the modern can be or not be. This is a theoretical starting point from which the investigation into modernity starts.  The result of the investigation shows that the sacral textiles in their newly manufactured parts was influenced by the modernist church context. It appears in the essay that the influencing factors were several and they appeared in the context of the church ́s liturgy, the architect ́s visions and the designers’ artistic signature in expression. These gave effect in different ways to the appearance and design of the sacred textiles.

I mitt examensarbete, utfört på programmet Inredningsarkitektur och möbeldesign/Konst­ fack, vårterminen 2024, utvecklar och formges ett designförslag, en omprogrammering av en lanthandel i Vitaby på Österlen. Det som en gång var en lanthandel föreslås bli en samlingslokal, för främst bröllop, men också för kulturevene­mang, som konserter. I byggnaden, som är byggd år 1902 ska besökaren få en känsla av hög­tidlighet och romantik som ska associera till såväl husets som valda delar av bygdens kultur och naturuttryck. Ambitionen med inredningen är att den åter­ spegla ”bilder” och föreställningar av Öster­len, många tänke nog på Österlen som idyl­ liskt och vackert, med kombinationen av natur och kultur. Vitaby, vars historia kretsar runt äppelproduktion och järnvägen, ska också ingå som komponent i den rumsliga gestaltningen. I projektet utvecklas ett estetiskt uttryck som kopplas till flera av de konstnärer som avbildade Österlen under 1900­talets början. Såväl orsak som motiv till detta förslag kom­ mer ur att bröllop vanligen utgår från konser­vativa traditioner. Eftersom majoriteten av alla lantliga bröllop är antingen bröllop i lant­liga ekonomibyggnader (loge) eller ett stall. Andra bröllop kan arrangeras mer flärdfullt i en herrgård, ytterligare andra kan hållas på Österlens sandstränder. Mitt designförslag väver samman såväl de romantiska och önskade bilderna av Österlens natur och Vitaby Lanthandels byggnadshistoria som uttryck och motiv i flera konstnärskap från 1900­ talets början.

In the early-15th-century book Il libro dell’arte by Cennino Cennini, the author uses the word diadema about a dozen times. The most recent Swedish edition from 2011 interprets this not as an object but as a halo, a divine light. The earlier edition from 1947/2000 keeps the closest meaning, a diadem, and by that the physical item. Both a material diadem and an immaterial halo would be represented in gold in the paintings described, consequently the symbolism of this material is closely linked to the interpretation of the motives Cennini could be describing.        The time around 1400, in Florence, is an important period of transition, where a fashion that differs for men and women has just been born, the boundaries of the sumptuary laws concerning headdress and jewellery are constantly challenged by women, and the rise of a more secular world where an individual dignity developed may instead be an argument that the word diadema is an essential sign of a more materialistic lifestyle emerging. Several factors come together arguing that the golden headdress of the early renaissance played just as important a role in paintings as the divine light and therefore showing that not every item gilded is a symbol of divinity, it can also be earthly belongings such as insignia, jewellery and dress decoration.