Scandinavian Summer Houses
In many countries owning a second home is something only for the rich but in the Scandinavian countries, the idea of a second home, or to be more accurate, a ‘summer home,’ has long been a tradition for many. Even today its estimated that 20% of Scandinavians own a summer home, (most passed on from generation to generation) with around 50% having access to one. After a long cold winter in the city, the idea of heading out into their countryside, forests and lakes to make the most of their all too brief long summer days has become an annual ritual.
In this context, the summer solstice on 21st June is much celebrated and also fires the starting gun for the annual exodus to the woods. Most employers will allow staff to take off four consecutive weeks at this time of year and its accepted as normal to just receive ‘out of office’ messages through June and July. I suggested to a fairly senior member of the Finnish Embassy in London that, surely she still kept in touch with events while away for so long – to which she replied that as there was no electricity in her cabin her phone just ran down after a couple of days – after which she could start to relax properly.
And that says a lot about the summer houses, many of which are off-grid, without heating, hot water and in many cases indoor toilets – most are simply not suitable for occupation in the winter. Its traditional to spend the first week or so of the holiday fixing/painting/repairing your summer house and this manual work is very much part of the process of winding down – in some contrast to simply heading to the airport and finding yourself in Greece a few hours later.
For architects, these have always been seen as great opportunities as there are so few constraints on design, the relationship between house and nature is key and many of the sites available are simply stunning. Modern houses in particular work really well as a foil to the rugged beauty of their sites and in these settings at least, less really does become more. Its not surprising therefore that Alvar Aalto (Blog 12), Oiva Kallio (Blog 19), Gunnar Asplund and Arne Jacobsen all built their own summer houses and even Jorn Utzon’s holiday houses in Majorca (below) can be viewed in this context.
Interestingly, despite this very different lifestyle (or perhaps because of it) GDP per capita in all the Scandinavian countries is above the UK’s.
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John Stewart 