MILLION PROGRAMME

House in Hammarkullen (Angered), northeast Gothenburg

An apartment complex in Rosengård, Malmö.

The 'Million Programme' (''Miljonprogrammet'') is the common name for an ambitious housing programme implemented in Sweden between 1965 and 1974 by the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party. The aim of the programme was to build a million new dwellings in a 10-year period (hence the project's name). At the same time, a large proportion of the older unmodernised housing stock was demolished.
In the end, about 1,006,000 new dwellings were built, and the face of Sweden was changed forever. The net result was an increase in Sweden’s housing stock of 650,000 new apartments and houses, with a general rise in quality ^[1], arguably at the expense of aesthetics.

Design

Criticisms

Million Programme districts

References

Design

The new Million Programme residential areas were greatly inspired by early suburban neighbourhoods such as Vällingby and Årsta. One of the main aims behind the planning of these residential areas was to create 'good democratic citizens'. The means of achieving this were to build at high quality with a good range of services including schools, nurseries, churches, public spaces, libraries and meeting places for different groups of households. A principal aim, although ultimately unsuccessful, was to mix and integrate different groups of households through the spatial mixing of tenures. Most of the apartments were of the "standard three room apartment" type (Swedish: ''normaltrea'') of 75 m², planned for a model family of two adults and two children.

Criticisms

While the programme did succeed in creating one million dwellings, many have criticised its execution and aftermath.
The most common complaint is that it created too many "''ugly concrete buildings''" which ruined the cityscape. Only 16% of the buildings actually used concrete on the exterior, and almost half the development was constructed as single-family homes, but the programme is now popularly associated with the so called "''concrete suburbs''", i.e. dull, grey, low-status suburbs made mainly out of concrete slabs. The architecture in these areas is criticised for being sterile and some have even compared the buildings to those found in former Eastern Bloc countries such as East Germany. The three well-known suburbs Rinkeby (in Stockholm), Hammarkullen (in Gothenburg) and Rosengård (in Malmö) were all created as a part of the programme and have become symbols of the era.