Wooden storehouses with jutting upper floors and balconies are ubiquitous in rural Scandinavia. This talk demonstrates how such buildings contributed to ‘race-thinking’ in nineteenth-century Sweden. By studying the ways in which ethnographers, archaeologists, and architects traced the history of the Scandinavian people, it argues that vernacular architecture played a central yet forgotten role in conceptualising Scandinavia and in imagining its inhabitants’ innate characteristics. For nineteenth-century intellectuals, loft storehouses served as evidence to label the Scandinavians as Aryans and to highlight the importance of these people in the world history of architecture.
About Dr Anna Ripatti
Anna Ripatti is a historian of nineteenth-century European art and architecture. She has published on a variety of topics, including architectural restoration and its politicisation, art historiography, monuments, history paintings, architectural periodicals, decorations on farm buildings, and other architectural reforms. Currently, she is University Lecturer in Art History at the University of Helsinki.
Lecture Series
Each year the History of Architecture and Built Environment (HABE) research group in ESALA welcomes guest speakers and colleagues to present an evening seminar on their research. The events are a fantastic opportunity to hear about the latest research in the field from researchers working in the UK, Europe and beyond. These events are free to attend, and attract an international online audience as well as being a way for all those in the University with an interest in the history of the built environment to come together as a community.
University students (of all levels) and staff are encouraged to attend on campus, with the seminars usually taking place in the Elliot Room at Minto House, 20 Chambers Street.
