Journals of architecture and design are important factors in the development of homes and housing, influencing both the individual reader and design as a whole.This year Allt i hemmet celebrates its jubilee. During the half-century elapsing since the magazine was founded in 1956, Swedish society has been transformed in both major and minor respects and the magazine with it.
Homes and home-making in Sweden
Allt i hemmet has focused on house, home and garden. During the early decades the contents also included recipes and articles about animals, nature and consumer law. The emphasis today is on creating a periodical to inspire pleasant home furnishing.
Allt i Hemmet was launched in 1956 with Thomas Wendel as its legal publisher and several household names among its contributors. These included the interior architect Lena Larsson, whose all-purpose room had attracted attention at the H55 housing fair in Helsingborg.
The widespread introduction of television in Sweden in 1956 was destined to revolutionise home furnishing. The three-piece suite, formerly the flagship of Swedish sitting rooms, was abandoned in favour of stools and light furniture which could be moved about easily. The television set was also instrumental in opening up the sitting room for everyday use.
In 1964 the magazine provoked a heated debate with a major furniture test showing that expensive furniture was no better than the cheap variety and the IKEA, still mostly a mail order firm, was competitive.
The superabundance of furniture which accumulated in the 1960s was followed at the beginning of the 1970s by a DIY vogue. In one issue, Allt i Hemmet offered to saw chipboard for 23 different items of furniture to readers’ designs, and the response was tremendous. That issue sold right out, and in a survey 26 per cent of the readers said that they were going to build the furniture.
The furniture presented in the journal during the 80s was unmistakeably post-modern – colourful, humorous, often asymmetrical, expressing a play on associations in the vocabulary of design.
Interior furnishing at this time was a mixture of modern and nostalgic. With one foot still in the 80s, with their tubular steel furniture and leather sofas, the contemporary trend also favoured rag rugs, Gustavian-style dining room furniture and floral romanticism.
There are many different styles of interior furnishing coexisting today in the 21st century: minimalism, oriental style, old-world romanticism, New England style … And they are all to be seen in Allt i Hemmet, even if minimalism has never held a prominent position in this magazine