Vernacular Buildings and Urban Social Practice: Wood and People in Early Modern Swedish Society

Wooden buildings housed the majority of Swedish urban populations during the early modern era, but many of these buildings have disappeared as the result of fire, demolition, and modernisation. They were built during periods of urban transformation; disdained for their rural look and for the fire hazard they represented they were nevertheless valued for being warm, affordable and movable. This study reveals the fundamental role played by the wooden house in the formation of urban Sweden and Swedish history. Wooden buildings were particularly suited to mass production and relocation, which helped to realise the ideal town plan in the transformation of Swedish urban space. Early modern wooden houses feature more as archaeological remains and less as preserved buildings every year, thus examination and comparison of these two distinct datasets combined with historical records is important in this study. The author establishes how log construction, timber framing and post and plank buildings were used for a wide range of functions in both central and peripheral locations, and within all strata of society. New strategies were developed to create affordable warm housing while the housing stock featured both change and continuity of layout; the storeyed house contributed to evolution of the multiple unit structure. Surprisingly, this study establishes that timber-framing was more prevalent geographically and functionally than previous research indicated.