Modernizing Architecture and Ornament on Mid-Nineteenth-Century Scandinavian Farms

Modernizing Architecture and Ornament on Mid-Nineteenth-Century Scandinavian Farms anna ripatti University of Helsinki istorians have long looked upon railways and facto- viewed as a unified cultural sphere, I aim to shed light on ries as the primary symbols of nineteenth-century efforts to promote a united Scandinavia through architecture modernization, yet contemporary sources reveal and, specifically, through architectural ornament. H 1 that farmsteads, too, were central to that process. In mid- Nineteenth-century Sweden and Finland were predom- nineteenth-century Scandinavia, a small, liberal elite of inantly rural societies. In 1850, 90 percent of Sweden’s agrarian and architectural reformers—comprising gentle- 3.5 million inhabitants were rural; the proportions were men farmers, owners of large estates, architects, and civil similar in Finland, where in 1865 more than 93 percent of the engineers—launched a vigorous campaign to improve farm 1.8 million inhabitants were rural dwellers. Peasant farmers architecture for the purposes of feeding a growing population and landless agricultural laborers constituted by far the larg- 2 and expanding industry and exports. They published numer- est part of the population, whereas the number of noble rural ous plans for model farmsteads and encouraged peasants and estates was quite small.3 Referring to the farm architecture rural laborers to craft wood decorations for their farm build- of landowning peasants and their laborers, Charles Emil ings. In Sweden and Finland, the reformers widely regarded Löfvenskiöld, a Swedish amateur architect and tenant farmer farmhouses and their outbuildings as the most important descended from an impoverished noble family, wrote in 1869 types of structures through which to improve the national that no one could deny the great national importance of the economies and promote a modern rural architecture. Wood buildings of “these millions of people and their stock, on carvings played a major role not only in the new aesthetic whose well-being depends the prosperity of Sweden.”4 ideal but also in plans for more comprehensive social reform. Although several historians have examined Löfvenskiöld’s By contextualizing the promotion of architectural orna- attempts to renew farm architecture in Sweden, little attention ment within debates about rural architectural reform and the has been paid either to contemporary discussions of these condition of the rural poor, I seek to show in this article that reforms or to their transnational character.5 Meanwhile, while ornament served as a means of imagining and planning a noting the abundance of wood carvings in mid-nineteenth- model society. Elite Nordic reformers used ornament as a century Nordic architecture, historians for the most part have tool for improving the condition of rural inhabitants, increas- interpreted the carvings as merely decorative, connected to ing agricultural production, encouraging craft as a source of the so-called Swiss style, reflecting either the progress of in- income for the rural poor, spreading civilization and well- dustrialism or a growing interest in indigenous building tradi- being, and imposing order in the Scandinavian countryside. tions.6 Such interpretations fail to recognize the meanings of Focusing on Sweden and Finland, which the reformers this type of ornament for nineteenth-century reformers, who saw it as capable of regenerating not only architecture but Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 78, no. 1 (March 2019), 68–89, ISSN 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2019 by the Society society more generally. Further, while many scholars have of Architectural Historians. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for considered how the meanings of architectural ornament were permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of changed by the advent of standardized, mechanical mass pro- California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress .edu/journals/reprints-permissions, or via email: [email protected]. duction and the marketing of prefabricated decorations in DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2019.78.1.68. catalogues, handicraft and mechanical production were not 68 Figure 1 Saastamoinen Farmstead, Maaninka, Finland, as seen in 1927 (photo by Ahti Rytkönen; Ethnographic Picture Collections, The Finnish Heritage Agency). seen as mutually exclusive in mid-nineteenth-century Scandi- By the mid-nineteenth century, the growing numbers of navia.7 Promoters of architectural ornament there aimed to landless rural laborers in these areas posed a serious problem. combine the positive effects of mass production and handi- At a time when the traditional guild system still regulated in- craft and to show that the products of both were vital to build- dustry and trade, and thus stifled the growth of commerce ing a civilized and prosperous modern society. Treatises on outside towns, agriculture was the main source of income for farm architecture and instructions for making wood ornament rural populations.11 The prospects of making a decent living merged aesthetic and political aspirations, their texts promot- from agriculture, however, were diminishing. Many owners of ing a modern, welfare society that would grow and benefit large estates replaced their tenant farmers with seasonal work- from wooden architectural ornament. These small and seem- forces, and, consequently, the social and economic gaps be- ingly insignificant decorative details were thus loaded with po- tween landowners and the landless widened even further.12 litical significance. The grinding poverty of the landless rural population was widely discussed in the press. Some landowners were con- vinced that alcohol was to blame. Others believed the problem The Impoverished Countryside was rooted in outdated employment contracts and the inade- Beginning in the late eighteenth century, Nordic rural com- quate wages paid to agricultural workers. Many faulted the munities experienced dramatic physical and organizational custom of paying wages in kind as opposed to cash.13 The rise changes. In Sweden and Finland (at that time an eastern of socialism beginning in the late 1840s gave special urgency province of Sweden), a redistribution of land dispersed tradi- to an already heated debate, although socialist ideas had as yet tional villages and their once-clustered farmsteads. New farm- made few inroads among Nordic rural populations. Alarmed steads were built in remote rural areas where landowning by the prospect of landless rural workers outnumbering peasants held separate parcels, each with its own farmhouse landed peasants, many observers saw in the rural poor a threat (Figure 1). A further reorganization of farm boundaries oc- to the established political and social order.14 The future of curred in Sweden and Finland (the latter of which became an society thus depended on the well-being and good conduct of autonomous grand duchy of the Russian Empire in 1809) in the laboring population. Scandinavian writers and politicians, the early nineteenth century. The aim of these reorganiza- like their counterparts almost everywhere in Europe, began tions was to provide more land for cultivation so as to improve devoting unprecedented attention to the masses. agricultural productivity and better feed growing popula- In the context of these discussions, a new emphasis on tions.8 However, as a consequence of these policies, the num- modernizing rural societies arose. Such modernization was ber of landless rural poor increased considerably, while the aimed at increasing agricultural production and improving number of peasant farmers, who usually owned the land they the lot of the rural poor at a time when poverty was peaking. cultivated and had relatively high social and economic stand- This activity—initiated by the owners of large estates—led to ing, remained more or less the same.9 In Finland especially, the launch of several specialized monthly and weekly maga- rural poverty became widespread as a result of dramatic pop- zines, the founding of regional agricultural societies and ulation growth.10 farming schools, and the first agricultural meetings and fairs, MODERNIZING ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENT ON MID-NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCANDINAVIAN FARMS 69 where new ideas were discussed and information on modern owners, architects, and civil engineers recognized the eco- farming was distributed among people of all classes.15 nomic, social, and aesthetic opportunities offered by agrarian These measures proved insufficient in combating poverty, reform, and they stepped in to help. The publishing industry however. Finland’s Poor Aid Act of 1852, intended to prevent proved to be a valuable tool in their endeavors. pauperism and vagrancy, introduced new controls on landless The need for reform in rural architecture, and in agri- rural laborers, forcing them to submit to the legal guardian- cultural practices more generally, was a constant cry in the ship of the landowners for whom they worked. The social and press. In 1850, an anonymous writer in a Finnish newspaper economic position of the rural poor was further weakened by lamented, “Everywhere [in the countryside] one longs for reforms that redefined land-use rights, including restricting calculation and plan, order and beauty, art in harmony with the rights of the landless to practice slash-and-burn agricul- natural conditions, simplicity and modesty combined with ture. The harms caused by these policies were exacerbated

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