Art Nouveau

Jugend, as Art Nouveau is called in Sweden after the German magazine Jugend, is an international revolt against Historicism. Instead of borrowing ornament from the Renaissance and Baroque, architects take their forms from nature: tendrils, flowers, water.

In Sweden the style flourishes roughly 1896–1914. The breakthrough comes with the General Art and Industrial Exhibition at Djurgården in 1897, with Ferdinand Boberg as chief architect. From there the style spreads quickly across the country, and the exhibitions in Norrköping in 1906 and Malmö in 1914 carry it further. Malmö becomes an Art Nouveau city in its own right, with architects such as Oscar Hägg and Axel Anderberg, whose St John's Church is built in 1903–1907.

The models are in Vienna and Paris. In Austria Art Nouveau turns strict – straight lines and geometric figures. In France the doorways overflow with flowing lines. Leading Swedish architects find much of it vulgar. So Sweden makes a version of its own. Measured. Restrained. With smooth, softly curved rendered surfaces.

The ornament is painted in the façade's own colour. That is a clear break with the 1890s, when stone and brick were meant to contrast. The motifs come from Swedish nature – pine cones, oak leaves, pine twigs and sunflowers. Look closely by the door: there is often a frog, a turtle or a dragonfly, made of cast stone.

Stockholm is in the middle of a transformation. The streets are paved and electric trams replace the horses. Criticism of the dense, unhealthy stone town of the 1800s is massive – yet the builders keep filling the blocks of the grid. But the façades are new. In northern Vasastan, in Birkastan and along Hornsgatan, whole blocks of Art Nouveau rise, many of them drawn by the firms Dorph & Höög and Hagström & Ekman.

The street decides how grand the building becomes. Along the main streets stand tall buildings with shops on the ground floor, corner bay windows and rich decoration. In the working-class districts they build "arbetarjugend" – workers' Art Nouveau – with small flats, plain render and a few scored lines as the only ornament. Even so, every building gets its own shape and its own colours.

Behind the façade, life becomes more comfortable. Electricity becomes common. From the middle of the decade the water closet replaces the dry privy, and central heating with radiators gains ground. And in 1907 a new planning act arrives: now the city can set building height, depth and eaves height in detail – and demand that even the courtyard façades look decent.

In Stockholm there is the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Fredrik Lilljekvist, 1901–1908) and Ferdinand Boberg's buildings – among them the Thiel Gallery and the Central Post Office. In Gothenburg even the landshövdingehus get Art Nouveau dress: the houses grow deeper, and doors, bay windows and balconies are placed freely and asymmetrically across the façade.

But the truly wild Art Nouveau of the Continent? It is rare in Sweden. The Royal Dramatic Theatre is a restrained Viennese Jugendstil, and Wilhelm Klemming's Centralbadet would rather let greenery and garden take the stage. The exception is Carl Bergsten. After a study trip to Vienna in 1904 he designs the Norrköping Exhibition of 1906 – white, black and dark blue, with a parabolic dome over the industrial hall. Ragnar Östberg calls it "skeleton architecture", and means it as praise. Three years later Bergsten's Hjorthagen Church is completed in Stockholm.

In Sweden, Art Nouveau and National Romanticism often blend – many buildings carry traits of both.

National Romanticism. Art Nouveau is light, soft and international; National Romanticism is dark, heavy and wants to be Swedish. Engelbrekt Church in Stockholm has traits of both.

Neo-Renaissance. Neo-Renaissance is heavy and imitates stone – ashlar render, pediments over the windows and strong cornices. Art Nouveau keeps the render smooth and soft, and the ornament takes the façade's own colour. And the windows? Neo-Renaissance windows have surrounds and pediments. Art Nouveau windows often sit straight in the smooth render, with no surround at all.