Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Sandboxes and Heavenly Dwellings
Finnish housing was fundamentally transformed during the postwar period of (re-)construction. The emergence of new kinds of urban spaces entailed radical changes in the landscape, housing customs, and details of everyday life. The article explores suburbs as lived spaces, where architecture, environment, and inhabitants come together. I consider the built environment, discussions in the media regarding the new suburbs, and the written memories of inhabitants collected between 1995 and 2000. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the new suburbs symbolized a new way of life and were described enthusiastically in the media. However, from the late 1960s onwards criticism grew increasingly louder. By contrast, inhabitants' accounts present a multifaceted and mainly positive view in tension with media representations, offering a radically different perspective on suburban habitation. In my article, I explore the relations of suburban space and gender through two cases: the modern dwelling described as “heavenly” in the written memories; and the playground with the sandbox as its nucleus. These sites were crucial both in the narratives of suburban living and the planning of new residential environments. I pay particular attention to the figure of the suburban housewife and the agency of inhabitants as well as suburban social networks (claimed to be nonexistent in the then current criticism). My analysis proposes that meaningful social relations were formed in the suburbs, but they were constructed mainly by women and children. I suggest that instead of being the antithesis of modernity, suburbs were key spaces for the formation of the postwar Finnish housing environment, society, and gender relations.
Sandboxes and Heavenly Dwellings
Finnish housing was fundamentally transformed during the postwar period of (re-)construction. The emergence of new kinds of urban spaces entailed radical changes in the landscape, housing customs, and details of everyday life. The article explores suburbs as lived spaces, where architecture, environment, and inhabitants come together. I consider the built environment, discussions in the media regarding the new suburbs, and the written memories of inhabitants collected between 1995 and 2000. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the new suburbs symbolized a new way of life and were described enthusiastically in the media. However, from the late 1960s onwards criticism grew increasingly louder. By contrast, inhabitants' accounts present a multifaceted and mainly positive view in tension with media representations, offering a radically different perspective on suburban habitation. In my article, I explore the relations of suburban space and gender through two cases: the modern dwelling described as “heavenly” in the written memories; and the playground with the sandbox as its nucleus. These sites were crucial both in the narratives of suburban living and the planning of new residential environments. I pay particular attention to the figure of the suburban housewife and the agency of inhabitants as well as suburban social networks (claimed to be nonexistent in the then current criticism). My analysis proposes that meaningful social relations were formed in the suburbs, but they were constructed mainly by women and children. I suggest that instead of being the antithesis of modernity, suburbs were key spaces for the formation of the postwar Finnish housing environment, society, and gender relations.
Sandboxes and Heavenly Dwellings
Saarikangas, Kirsi (Autor:in)
Home Cultures ; 11 ; 33-64
01.03.2014
32 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Construction method of fabricated bridge swivel without supporting legs and sandboxes
Europäisches Patentamt | 2021
|Online Contents | 1995
|Method for unloading sandboxes of section pre-fabricated steel truss continuous beam bridge
Europäisches Patentamt | 2015
|