Are you ready to step back in time to the roaring 20s? Let's take a closer look at the classicism style of the era, both inside and out!
Gunnar Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, ph. Fabien Bellat
Starting with the exterior, you'll notice the symmetrical wood or plaster facades adorned with columns, pilasters, decorative medallions, festoons, and dentils. The roofs are ridge-shaped with a 45-degree pitch, topped with small dormer windows, and boast pronounced eaves. Windows are tall with three panes on the ground floor and lower with two panes on the upper floor, often including lunette windows. The outside door features a roof supported on brackets, an overhead light, and an open porch with a cement base. Don't forget about the beautiful balconies with wooden pillars and fences with balusters and profiled uprights, as well as copper dentil, friezes that adorned more expensive homes.
Inside, let's start with the floors, which can be narrow spruce or pine floorboards, varnished and visible or covered with linoleum. Oak parquet in a fishbone pattern with edging was also popular. Wooden doors, glazed or with three equal-size wooden panels and wooden grip, stained black with a keyhole plate of chromed steel, complete the interior doors. Open fireplaces with straight lines and marble mantelpieces were commonplace, as central heating replaced tiled stoves. Geometric wallpaper with lines, circles, and stepped shapes, as well as Asian-inspired ornamentation and flowers, decorated walls, along with fabrics in muted colors.
Furniture from the era features clean, simple lines in elm and birch woods, reminiscent of Nordic folk designs from the Art Deco period. Lighting improved with 80 percent of Stockholmers having electric lighting at home, including table lamps and standard lamps in addition to ceiling lights. Bathrooms and separate lavatories became common, with simple freestanding baths, tiled walls and floors, and external pipework. White tiles were the most popular, but don't forget the colored tiles in dark red, dark blue, and green! The kitchen became more stylish with light colors like beige and pale yellow and glossy linoleum, and upper-wall cupboards became a fixed part of the design. Tiles on the walls were often placed edge-to-edge without grouting, which helped add to the sleek and modern look of the time.
So, there you have it! A glimpse into the classicism style of the 1920s, both inside and out. It's amazing to see how much design has changed since then, but it's always fun to take a trip down memory lane!