Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

‘Swedish Modern’ meets international high politics: the 1959 New Delhi
embassy and Ambassador Alva Myrdal
HAGSTRÖMER, Denise / PhD (RCA) / Visiting Senior Tutor / Uppsala University / Sweden
Identity / History / Diplomacy / Gender
This paper contests the prevailing narrow conceptions of Swedish
modernity and received notions of the homogenous and stereotypical
image of Swedish Modernism and posits an inflected
historicist-traditionalist form of Swedish Modern. By revealing alternative
histories, my study provides a new perspective on Swedish
‘welfare nationalism’. Using primary sources, my investigative
strategy is also underpinned by a broad multi-disciplinary range
of recent Scandinavian research on nationalism, nation-building
and nation-formation.
1. Introduction
Using the New Delhi embassy as a focus, my study investigates
the design culture and material framework of the official projection
of Sweden internationally. 1 Current knowledge of Swedish
embassies is very superficial, despite an ongoing reassessment
of Sweden’s national design legacy. Using primary sources and
a broad multi-disciplinary range of recent Scandinavian research
on nationalism and nation-building to examine both the embassy
exterior and interior, this paper will argue that, despite the fact that
the approach adopted was in essence experimental, and materialised
the very zenith of High Modernism and Swedish Folkhem
modernity, a set of quite different and contrasting identities was
also nonetheless expressed and materialised.
The New Delhi embassy case is remarkable for the fact that Alva
Myrdal was the first incumbent (posted to New Delhi from 1957
to 1962): she was an iconic pioneering social democratic debater,
writer and reformer of social politics, housing and women’s rights,
and widely regarded as one of the founders of the Swedish welfare
state. She was also Sweden’s first female ambassador, and the
first female diplomat to serve in India. Prior to New Delhi, she was
director of UNESCO’s Social Science section in Paris.
Swedish embassies and residences have been the responsibility
of the Swedish National Property Board since 1949, and before
that, the Foreign Ministry. The Swedish government itself has only
been actively engaged in renting or building property abroad since
the 1900s. Previously, ambassadors were expected to make their
own arrangements using their own funds.
2. The residence exterior: adapting to local
climate
The 40,000 square metres acquired by Sweden was part of the
1 Hagströmer (2011).
new diplomatic enclave at Chana Kyapuri (named after an Indian
diplomat), 364 acres (147 hectares) designated by Prime Minister
Nehru as part of a southward extension of Edwin Lutyens’ original
city plan (1914).
Jöran Curman (who had worked on other National Property Board
projects) was consultant architect, but delegated most of the work
to his former contemporary at the Royal Institute of Technology,
Sune Lindström (according to Lindströms widow, Malene Bjørn 2 ).
No competition was held, and Myrdal was not involved, it seems, in
the selection process. Before completing his architecture degree
in 1931, Lindström studied under Gropius and Meyer at the Bauhaus,
Dessau in 1928. 3
Curman and Lindström wrote that the basis of architectural composition,
in this case, was to an unusually large extent ‘climate,
construction techniques, and the general function of the buildings
in its widest sense’. 4 Measures to exclude direct sun included siting
all buildings towards the south, with east and west facades
protected by vegetation. Furthermore, ‘the single floor solution’ 5
was chosen in order to benefit from the coolness the earth provided,
giving an even temperature within the buildings. Lawns were
planted in front of the southfacing facades to reduce reflected
glare, with the additional benefit when irrigated of cooling through
evaporation. A further reason for choosing the ‘single floor solution’
was a need to avoid complex construction techniques as ‘the
local culture of building was primitive and lacked precision…there
were no sawmills and few manufacturers of building materials’. 6
This is apparent in archive photographs showing, for instance,
vast numbers of hand made sun-dried bricks being made by the
many itinerant bricklayers from Rajastan who camped on site with
their families. 7
The entrance opens onto a courtyard, with the wing-roofed State
Reception building opposite linked by covered walkway to the
Chancery and Ambassador’s Residence to the right and left respectively.
The State Reception Building’s wing-roof is the only
exception to a universal low-rise bungalow style with colonnaded
arcades. The architects describe the compound as being in three
parts: the official buildings, embassy staff and domestic staff accommodation,
including chauffeurs, gardeners and technicians,
for 80-100 people including their families.
2 Interview, Malene Björn, 1st February 2008.
3 Jöran Curman and Sune Lindström, Arkitektur no.1, 1961, p 13. . The local architect
was a Mr.Kothari of Master, Sathe and Kothari, a New Delhi practice.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid
7 National Board of Public Building archive, National archives.
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies / Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the International Committee for
Design History & Design Studies - ICDHS 2012 / São Paulo, Brazil / © 2012 Blucher / ISBN 978-85-212-0692-7