Housing Urban Masses Around a Green Yard. Typological comparison of modern examples in Copenhagen and Stockholm

Since the aftermath of the II world-war till recent years, Nordic countries have looked as inspiring social and architectural models to the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, very few attentions have been addressed towards the first bases of their developments, particularly the operations of the Twenties and of the first half of the Thirties. These residential interventions – which retained a certain continuity with the tradition of the city – were rapidly overshadowed by the ferment of functionalist ideas moved, though belatedly, northwards. Yet, these first spatial answers to modern demand are still under-investigated. Beside widening the historical focus, the present contribution pursues to morpho-typologically compare how Copenhagen and Stockholm tackled the evil of land speculation and the segregation of previous tenement buildings. This was possible thanks to a favourable political and cultural milieu, that consisted in the progressive outset of social democracies and housing cooperatives. The 1920s-1930s served as years of groundwork for translating in improved spatial terms the pressing social question. An evidence of this was a 3-day event of exclusively Nordic resonance, the Nordisk Byggnadsdag (1927), which gathered exponents of the countries discussing the housing issue in formal, social, economic and technical terms. As illustrated by the examples of the Nordic conference, housing urban masses around a green yard was the key to create new spatial and social relations among individuals. This also entails a valid counterbalance of the minimum dwellings’ size of which standards, in turn, were significantly improved. These estates, differing in size, formation and density, have in common the employment of the large courtyard block model, albeit with distinguishing variations in the shape of the perimeter and the singly or in groups arrangement. A selection of cases studies – whose concrete qualities are still appreciable nowadays by inhabitants – aims to demonstrate the significant reformation operated with respect to previous high-dense urban blocks.