Exteriör färgsättning på bostadsbebyggelse under 1800-talet. Fyra områden i södra Sverige

The project's main thesis is to verify the existence of local colours and colouring. The object for the research was dwellings in the rural areas of southern Sweden from the 19th century. In the rural areas of Sweden the most dominating traditional facade material is wooden panel. The colour at these facades is the traditional red-paint. It’s relevant for this project to take focus on geographical areas where it’s supposed to be differences in the colours. In the south of Sweden plastered facades are more common together with half-timbered and paneled facades. This makes the assumption for colouring more complex. In this area it was presumed easier to find other paint and colours then red-paint. The reason for chosing the 19th century was this period’s increasing use of paint and cheaper new pigments. The rural dwellings in Sweden consist of a great amount of building objects from the delimited time, which made this group of building suitable for the project. The introducting research had the main aim to identify geographical areas adequate to the delimitations. The first effort in defining the geographical areas was through short interviews with building archeologists together with archival studies and my own knowledge about colouring in southern Sweden. This resulted in ten geographical areas for further investigations. Through field studies, consisting of ocular investigations, at building objects it was possible to find the areas with the most adequate building objects. The criterias for these building objects were the existence of paint layers from the delimited period. Therefor it was necessary to do field studies at the facade details, where it is possible to estimate the age of the facades. The details at the facades could for instance be handmade nails, iron works at windows or profiles at the wooden panels specific for the 19th century. This part of the investigation led to four areas within the delimited geographical area with adequate building objects for a detailed investigation. Next part of the investigations, in the four geographical areas, has been made as archival research work, short interviews, colour steps, iconographic materials, literature studies and microscopic analyses of colour sections, which indicate presence of local colours and colouring. Colour steps are the main source in the investigation used togehter with the other sources to strenghten the results. It is already in this part of the work possible to establish local distinctions in the use of colours during the 19th century. The results indicate e.g. in one of the geographical areas different colours on the plastered facades due to if the building objects are situated in a fishing-village or if the building objects are farm-houses 1-2 km from the coast-line. Today in this area the most common colour is white at both groups of objects. But during the 19th century the farm-houses could be light-blue, light-red or light-green and the dwellings in the fishing-villages were white. In this case the results were visible from ocular investigations at the facades. This distinction between two kinds of dwellings is not valid for the other geographical areas. In Blekinge, Listers jurisdictional district, the dwellings in the fishing-villages and the farm-houses have no clear distinction in the use of colours. In other cases it’s even possible to indicate the presence of locally produced pigments. In Blekinge different sources point out a red pigment used for linseed oil-paint during the first part of the 19th century. The use of the red pigment together with white made the facades of the farm-houses light-red and this colour at the facades was used at the farm-houses in a small distinct part of the geographical area. It’s quite obvious that local colouring and colours have existed during the 19th century in the four areas. But it’s difficult to point out distinct ways to use colours, common for all the four geographical areas. Some observations are valid for all of the areas and others just for one geographical area. Due to the results it seams like every local area and region has had its own orders of colouring within the delimitations of the project