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The present study examines the church architecture of Johannes Olivegren (1926-89). Winning a contest on small-church design in 1953 proved to be the prelude to a career in architecture which by 1975 had resulted in the raising of a total of eighteen churches. His activities as a church architect coincide with an epoch displaying a quanitatively extensive and at times qualitatively impressive array of church architecture.

Olivegren displayed a breadth of variation in his church architecture. He worked with more traditional forms like the basilica and hall church in brick, while simultaneously experimenting with a dynamic expressionism in concrete. Olivegren's churches express both the desire to challenge the possibilities of form and a sure hand in dealing with it. He himself insisted that his foremost building block was light, which is most literally evident in the churches he collaborated on with the visual artists Ralph Bergholtz and Randi Fisher. A salient feature of Olivegren's architecture is the manner in which he uses form and light as elements to create motion - a motion forward and through space and a motion in which he seems to set the building itself. Closely related to this second aspect of motion is the manner in which the building takes possession of its environment. In numerous instances, Olivegren succeeded in exploiting topographical conditions to the extent that his relatively small churches assume a certain monumentality.

Olivegren's obsession with form was attacked by some critics as »un-Swedish«, which was seen as a negative quality in the era in which his churches were raised. And indeed, his Expressionistic concrete churches do display tendencies which were current outside of Sweden at the time.

This thesis covers the period between 1900 and 1930 and deals with the planning and design of factory buildings during the emergence of taylorism in Sweden. It presents a new perspective where modernism stands out as a consequence of the rationalization movement. The Swedish rationalization movement was based on American efficiency programs, primarily Scientific Management, a program formulated by F.W. Taylor, which he implementedin many American factories before publishing his ideas in 1911.

The aim of this study is to show that modernism did not emerge suddenlyand unexpectedly. In my opinion, this movement was the inevitable result ofall the social changes that occurred at the turn of the century. I also hope to show that Taylor’s efficiency theories were of great importance to the growth of modernism. The industry functioned as the driving force in this development and it was in the industry that the new ideas were implemented through new production methods and a new attitude towards the work as well as towards the factory building.

The source material I have used, apart from the factory buildings themselves, is new and previously unprocessed archive material concerning the engineering firm and the building contractor that built many notable Swedish factories during the period in question. I have also used other primary material from Swedish industrial companies and public records such as drawings, annual reports and correspondence. Recent research on Taylor and the rationalization movement has strengthened my line of argument.

Taylorism did not only affect the work methods of engineers and architects or the client’s ideas of his factory. It also contained most of the theoretical points of view of modernism twenty years before the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930: program study, function separation, standardization and minimization. The modernists were not uninterested in aesthetics. On the contrary, they saw a new kind of aesthetics replacing the old one. Tradition and traditional grandeur were rejected as points of departure for the design. The motivation of the form had to be sought in construction and function. Modernist architects argued that this was a way to overcome the dissonance between the form and the content of architecture. The practical became the beautiful.

There were symbolic ambitions also in modernism, although they were different from those of traditional architecture. Factories had a totally new appearance. The aesthetic message conveyed by them were order and efficiency, hygiene and openness towards the surrounding world. The factories ofthe new age were to demonstrate the product and the production process. This was the spirit in which Co-op’s factories were designed. In the horizontality of the facades the architects found an exterior analogue of the assembly lines, in the same way as the verticality of the rational factories had emphasized the separation of the various stages of the production process.

The modernists were the first to transfer the ideas of factory architecture to other kinds of architecture. The design of factories was considered to beas important as the design of other buildings and all kinds of architect assignments were handled in the same way.

The new church of Ytterlännäs, a large Neo-Classical sermon church, was consecrated in 1854. The old, medieval church was far too small to house the growing number of visitors. It was therefore abandoned, but managed to be spared from demolition. A couple of decades into the twentieth century did the church once again become the object of the congregation's maintenance. It was restored and has been used for services since 1939.These abandoned churches are the subject of the present dissertation. The main aim of this thesis is answering such questions as: Why where the ancient churches abandoned? Why where they later restored and which individuals or groups advocated restoration? How where the projects realized? What guiding principles informed their work and how was the practical matter of restoration done? What values did the people involved see in the restored objects?The chapter Old and New Churches is a general introduction to the subject and certain aspects of the Neo-Classical churches are treated. The chapter entitled The Congregation and the Abandoned Churches deals with the situation from the perspective of the Swedish Lutheran Church, where the Young Church movement embraced a faith in the church as a force capable of cultural renewal, which resulted in a wider interest in preservation and restoration of the old churches. The chapter The Ideology of Restoration deals with how modern ideas about restoration were mediated from Europe to Sweden. Sigurd Curman presented the new antiquarian doctrine of restoration in two articles from 1905 and 1906. The chapter The Preservation of Cultural Monuments and the Abandoned Churches shows that the restorations was made possible by the fact that the responsible authorities possessed better tools for the successful completion of their task by this time.In the chapter Erik Salvén and the Abandoned Churches the man is introduced, that meant the most for the restoration of the churches which this thesis deals with. These are the subjects of the following five chapters: Trönö in Hälsingland, Alnö in Medelpad, Ragunda and Oviken in Jämtland and Ytterlännäs in Ångermanland. The results of this thesis are discussed and summarized in the last chapter, Interpreting the History of a Church.