LANDALA Stadsdel i skuggan av det f?rg?ngna
In the post-war era many European countries were recovering from the ravages of the bombings of
the second world war destroying whole countries. Sweden being neutral was spared the destruction
of war but instead we demolished almost as much housing all by ourselves. A social program was
modeled to modernize the country and to drag the swedes out of poverty by building one million
apartments in just ten years and demolishing the old, dilapidated working-class neighborhoods. The
traumatic events of the demolition of large areas of both the central and the outskirts of most
Swedish cities is still very much present in the collective memory of people today and the new
modernistic districts are still paying the price of that, more than fifty years later. Today these
modernistic districts are in need of repair, and they are often homes to groups alienated from society
making their reputation even worse. How these districts should be handled are a constant dispute
and the ideas ranging from gentle reconditioning, modernization to jet again total demolition. This
study uses the small district of Landala in central Gothenburg as an example of a place carrying the
burden of total demolition and people being forced to leave a place where they had spent their
whole lives. The aim of this study is to put districts like Landala forward and to study the dynamics of
the blame that the buildings are carrying for past events. By using methods such as discourse analysis
and terms like collective memory, nostalgia, and symbolism a detailed picture of the forgotten small
district of Landala emerges and is in many ways similar to other cases of modernistic apartment
housing from this era, highlighting the way we handle these buildings that are making up most of the
countries housing stock today. The demolished Landala is very much a part of the new district of
Landala today and remines in the collective memory both on a professional level and on that of the
general public.