Municipalsamhällen i Västra Götaland Bebyggelse i Sveriges en gång vanligaste typ av tätort

Abstract

This essay elucidates ”municipalsamhällen”, an administrative form of agglomerations in rural districts in Sweden, common at the turn of the 20th century. A kind of communities we know little about today. This study examines the government authorities ideals regarding those communities, as well as the ideals of the communities themselves. It is also investigated what built environment ”municipalsamhällen” generated and how these environments has been handled until today. A review of the knowledge regarding ”municipalsamhällen” in the literature, research and legal acts are included. Two choosen communities, Lilla Edet and Stenstorp have been examined through their administrative board archives, historical maps, literature and field studies. It is found that most ”municipalsamhällen” were initialised by the county administrative board, in a fear of fire disaster, epidemic outbreaks and to safeguard rational land utilization. When the county forced the communities to establish ”municipalsamhällen”, the communities were already densely built and it was hard to regulate their present buildings in a town plan. The ”municipalsamhällen” formed ad hoc-plans that mostly followed their existing disposition. However, the town plans stipulated urban town centres with full block stone houses. Most of these centre plans never came about, but the communities did build a lot of infrastructure regarding water, sewerage and pavements. The examined communities also generated different types of built environment such as; a community house, a bathhouse, a power plant and a sports field. Though, none of these environments appeared in both of the communities. The type of community ”municipalsamhällen” has not been highlighted by the field of heritage authorities. This essay suggests that this could be due to the difficulty to form typologies which describe ”municipalsamhällen” well. It is a pity as these communities generated built environment that deserve our attention.