01. A million homes in ten years
By the mid-1960s Sweden has suffered a housing shortage for decades. The goal becomes a million homes in ten years, and parliament grants loans for some 100,000 homes a year in 1965–1974. The name comes from the heading "A million homes in ten years". How many were actually built depends on how you count – Statistics Sweden puts it at just over a million.
Only about a third become the high-rise estates most people picture. A third are low-rise apartment blocks and a third are houses – detached, linked and terraced. Construction is industrial and standardised: prefabricated concrete panels, standard drawings and cranes running on rails.
Areas such as Tensta, Rinkeby and Skärholmen in Stockholm, Hammarkullen and Bergsjön in Gothenburg and Rosengård in Malmö are criticised early on for their scale and for segregation. Today they are also heritage environments, and many face major renovation.
02. How to spot it
- 1.Slab blocks, point blocks and deck-access blocks in repeated series
- 2.Prefabricated concrete panels with render or brick facing
- 3.Large, traffic-free courtyards
- 4.Standardised flats and kitchens
- 5.As many terraced and linked houses as high-rises
03. The giveaway
The repetition. The same building, the same balconies and the same windows in a long series – built with cranes on rails, which needed flat ground.
Read the façade
- The same windows and balconies in a long series
- Prefabricated concrete panels
04. Where to see it
- Tensta, Rinkeby and Skärholmen, Stockholm
- Hammarkullen, Angered and Bergsjön, Gothenburg
- Rosengård, Malmö
- Ålidhem, Umeå
05. Often confused with
Brutalism. Million Programme buildings are concrete, but they are rational series – not architectural statements in raw concrete.
Sources
- Nationalencyklopedin (ne.se)
- Swedish Wikipedia: "Miljonprogrammet" (bygger bl.a. på SCB, Boverket och Stockholms stadsmuseum)