In the three decades from the end of the Second World War to the first oil shocks —or rather from the national Swedish Housing Policy in 1945 to the end of Miljonprogrammet public housing initiative in 1974— advances in housing in Sweden have signalled a radical change in the evolution of Swedish architecture and cities. This was neither solely the work of architecture itself nor the talent of specific professionals, but rather the result of a series of complex phenomena that reflected a leap forward in the development of society. Sweden is not unique in its development. However, its contribution to the evolution of housing design in Europe is as significant as it is unknown. Innovations such as national housing policies, models of residential neighbourhoods, production-adapted design planning, as well as research on kitchens and the domestic space had an impact in Italy (the INA-Casa design manuals), England (its advocacy of the “New Empiricism”) and Germany (the building systems developed during the second half of the 20th century). Swedish architecture has also influenced the housing standards still in use in our homes today. However, it is difficult to find references to Sweden in the international historiography of modern architecture. The powerful connection between the housing question in the country and the development and evolution of Swedish society are, ironically, partly responsible for this omission. The deep and complex association between Swedish housing and Swedish society hinders a critical study of these contributions as isolated phenomena. This paper seeks to provide a continuous view of the housing public programmes in Sweden from 1945 to 1975. By resituating three decades of residential models on the pivotal notion of the “housing question”, the study unfolds a chronological description of the most relevant Swedish housing contributions within their social, cultural and urban context.