"A Home": Östberg’s search for the total artwork

This paper aims to be a discovering voyage on how the Swedish architect Ragnar Östberg (1866-1945) turned the intuitions expressed in his 15-pages pamphlet entitled Ett hem. Dess byggnad och inredning (“A Home. Its construction and interior design”) which came out in 1905, into projects of domestic architecture. Ett hem encapsulates the Nordic devotion to craftsmanship, inscribed in the early studies on Swedish folklore and rural tradition. The title of the booklet captured the two fundamental themes of the fin de siècle architectural debate: construction (byggnad) and interior design (inredning), encompassing the enduring dilemma of their relation summed up in ett hem. In their imaginary, Sweden meant simultaneously both the vast native land and the intimate home. It is also worth noting that National Romanticism was partly in debt to the theories of the British Arts & Crafts Movement.Until now this booklet has been accessible to only-Swedish readership; it is my aim to include an English translation in the documentary section of my doctoral thesis.