Narratives about open plan architecture : A study on dwellings, dwellers and lifestyle in the early 21th century Sweden

Since the beginning of the 21st century the open plan dwelling, i.e. open connections between reception areas and kitchen, has become an increasingly popular form of housing in Sweden. The aim of this thesis is to investigate narratives describing the life in open plan apartments, discussing (1) what they contain, (2) how they are constructed and distributed and (3) what social consequences they entail. These three questions have an immediate connection to the three levels of the critical discourse analysis formulated by Norman Fairclough where he analyses every instance of a discourse as simultaneously being text, discursive practice and social practice. The study has been accomplished in the newly built area Hammarby sjöstad in Stockholm through interviews with builders, architects and people living in open plan apartments. Articles in interior magazines describing an open plan lifestyle has also been taken into consideration. Three themes is being discussed, the first describing the social qualities imagined to be naturally embedded in the open plan architecture. The second highlights the idea of cooking as both a way of living and as a factor contributing to the popularity of the open housing design, and the last focuses on the open plan home as a place for self performance. At the text-level the material describes the impact of the open plan dwelling as a result of new interests, as dependent on new social habits and as a desire to put the home and the ongoing life on display. The ideas of what an open plan architecture actually can accomplish may, at a discoursive practice level, be given explanations from three main orders of discourse: the architectural, the market, and the good life order of discourse. The social practice level makes it obvious that the ideals concerning housing and lifestyle simultaneously reproduce old and create new social practices, taking into account cultural notions of gender relations, family life, social habits and questions of class