Helgo Zettervall (1831–1907) was one of Sweden’s principal architects and design talents. He was professionally active for 40 years, from the late 1850s to the mid-1890s – a period of intensive building activity in Sweden. For the first twenty years of his career, he had his practice in Lund, and in the subsequent twenty years he lived in Stockholm as head of Sweden’s state authority for public buildings. Zettervall was very productive. His portfolio contains 281 projects, of which 160 were executed, ranging from large cathedral restorations with thousands of detailed drawings and large public buildings to porch extensions and smaller residences. This dissertation highlights Zettervall’s works by putting them in a context and by analysing their qualitative aspects. Carried out as a historiographical case study, the framework for the dissertation is the architectural monograph. The individual architectural projects are the core of the presentation, assembling and making archive material readily accessible, and the method is leaning towards that of an oeuvre complète raisonné. The method includes three distinct approaches: a factual accounting of documents and drawings, a context-setting frame story that provides the conditions, and an architectural analysis. Zettervall belonged to the first generation of architects who could receive a well-planned and broad training in Sweden. All of this training took place against a backdrop of what a specific assignment demanded in terms of responsiveness and understanding. Zettervall developed a special talent for utilizing new construction methods and materials. Each assignment was a challenge to investigate new design principles and new spatial ideas. The investigation shows that every project was unique for Zettervall, and that his various solutions depended on the specific situation, regarding site and program. Zettervall was a distinct pragmatic. Every assignment had its unique conditions, and thus had a unique solution. / <p>QC 20170511</p>

The focus of this case study is the renewal of Vällingby Centre which took place between 2004 and 2008. With its scale, ambition and content, Vällingby represented something completely new in Swedish urban development when the town district came into being in the early 1950s. The community centre also had an important role to play, it not only had a commercial function it also had a social and cultural function. Despite the fact that community centres appeared in great numbers, few of them remain as they once were. Many have undergone major changes including alterations and, quite often rather careless intervention, both with regard to their interior and exterior. New shop types, consumption patterns and increasingly fierce competition are just some of the factors that have led to the original values contained within this area being on the verge of disappearing. The entire town of Vällingby was nominated in 1987 by the National Heritage Board as a clear and well preserved example of an ABC city with regard to it structure and the planning ideals of the 1950s. An expression of such conservation ambitions signifies, however, a potential conflict situation with other interested parties and areas of interest, not least when it comes to buildings and environments that are for commercial use. The main purpose of this study is to deal with the renewal of Vällingby centre from a cultural heritage perspective. The first chapter will provide a background as to why Vällingby came about and present a picture of post-war town planning and the emergence of Vällingby Centre; while the second chapter will examine the decision-making process behind the renewal, where Välingby's town centre regeneration offers an interesting example of how areas which are classed as being of national interest are dealt with during the planning process. Vällingby Centre is an example of one of our modern national interests and of the maintenance and conservation problems post-war developments are associated with. The central parts of the town are also associated with a largely unexplored field of study, despite the increased diversity conservation intentions have received over the past few decades. / QC 20120502

This study of Grevegården Church, Tynnered, Gothenburg, Sweden, shows how Swedish architect Rolf Bergh's characteristic motifs are applied even in what is his last completed building. Through comparisons with works constructed at different times in Bergh's long, unbroken career of designing church buildings (from the late 1940s up until 1992), the study finds that the architect's theoretical base very much shapes the built space.  This study also shows how a relatively common process for a new church building in Sweden happened at the end of the 20th century - from the competition proposal, via the project design to the finished building. In this process we find a dynamic between architect and client, but also between architect and, for example, procurement rules. Rolf Bergh belongs to a modernist tradition in which the architect plays a major role in the process - as in Grevegården Church, where he has designed everything from the exterior to the light fittings.  Rolf Bergh has often been seen primarily as a religious architect, with the implication that function took precedence over aesthetic values. This study argues instead that Bergh was essentially a modernist architect, while maintaining high aesthetic quality, albeit probably more versed than many of his contemporaries in liturgical matters. In this specific building Bergh, in line with the times, incorporates and blends postmodernist motifs with modernist ones. The cultural-historical values of Grevegården church are counteracted by the relative ordinariness of the building and the fact that the building does not yet meet the age criterion for general conservation value. In the current discourse, there is a tendency to positively re-evaluate the architecture of the late 1980s and early 1990s. With an understanding based on this tendency, Grevegården church can very well assert itself on its aesthetic quality. The study concludes by discussing the ongoing debate about how potentially redundant church spaces should be managed and valued in the future.

What values does a state notable building express when it not only represents prosperity values but also carries burdensome memories from people's lives? In what ways does the preservation of a former madhouse/mental hospital affect our understanding of the field of mental illness? This essay intends to research a former mental hospital, located in the city of Vadstena in Sweden, which today operates as a hospital museum. In this study the old mental hospital has been defined as a difficult cultural heritage. Through an architectural analysis of the building together with literature studies from previous work within cultural heritage the study aims to understand how the site today contributes and affects our understanding of mental illness and care. By examining our past from a distinctive perspective the study shows how Vadstena Hospital Museum today plays a significant role in how the psychiatric historical representation is treated and experienced today. Through difficult and complex cultural heritage humans' less desirable actions and events have the opportunity to be seen, heard, felt and discussed from a different perspective.