Den rationella fabriken : om funktionalismens rötter

• This thesis covers the period between 1900 and 1930 and deals with the planning and design of factory buildings during the emergence of taylorism in Sweden. It presents a new perspective where modernism stands out as a consequence of the rationalization movement. The Swedish rationalization movement was based on American efficiency programs, primarily Scientific Management, a program formulated by F.W. Taylor, which he implementedin many American factories before publishing his ideas in 1911.The aim of this study is to show that modernism did not emerge suddenlyand unexpectedly. In my opinion, this movement was the inevitable result ofall the social changes that occurred at the turn of the century. I also hope to show that Taylor’s efficiency theories were of great importance to the growth of modernism. The industry functioned as the driving force in this development and it was in the industry that the new ideas were implemented through new production methods and a new attitude towards the work as well as towards the factory building.The source material I have used, apart from the factory buildings themselves, is new and previously unprocessed archive material concerning the engineering firm and the building contractor that built many notable Swedish factories during the period in question. I have also used other primary material from Swedish industrial companies and public records such as drawings, annual reports and correspondence. Recent research on Taylor and the rationalization movement has strengthened my line of argument.Taylorism did not only affect the work methods of engineers and architects or the client’s ideas of his factory. It also contained most of the theoretical points of view of modernism twenty years before the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930: program study, function separation, standardization and minimization. The modernists were not uninterested in aesthetics. On the contrary, they saw a new kind of aesthetics replacing the old one. Tradition and traditional grandeur were rejected as points of departure for the design. The motivation of the form had to be sought in construction and function. Modernist architects argued that this was a way to overcome the dissonance between the form and the content of architecture. The practical became the beautiful.There were symbolic ambitions also in modernism, although they were different from those of traditional architecture. Factories had a totally new appearance. The aesthetic message conveyed by them were order and efficiency, hygiene and openness towards the surrounding world. The factories ofthe new age were to demonstrate the product and the production process. This was the spirit in which Co-op’s factories were designed. In the horizontality of the facades the architects found an exterior analogue of the assembly lines, in the same way as the verticality of the rational factories had emphasized the separation of the various stages of the production process.The modernists were the first to transfer the ideas of factory architecture to other kinds of architecture. The design of factories was considered to beas important as the design of other buildings and all kinds of architect assignments were handled in the same way.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Konst (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

industrial architecture

taylorism and modernism rational architecture

the rationalization movement daylight factories

Swedish factories factory planning

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

dok (ämneskategori)