The house that once was: Public Children home (Barnhem) in Stockholm

This article is part of the Listening Rooms series, a personal project curated by Biljana Janjusevic that propose mapping of the crucial interior design movements, in order to reinterpret their role to the architecture as a discipline and their importance in contemporary (and past) everyday life. Este artículo es parte de la serie Listening Rooms , comisariada por Biljana Janjusevic que propone un mapeo de los movimientos cruciales en el diseño de interiores, con el fin de reinterpretar su papel en la arquitectura como disciplina y su importancia en la vida cotidiana contemporánea (y pasada). Architecture’s roll in public life has evolved with pace of development of our societies. Seldom has any form of institution developed without parallelly giving rise to a architectural articulation of its power. But societies change and the historical memory is of short breath. This is the reason why certain buildings seem extremely surprising to a contemporary observer. One of such buildings is Public Children Home in Stockholm. El papel de la arquitectura en la vida pública ha evolucionado al ritmo del desarrollo de nuestras sociedades. Rara vez se ha desarrollado alguna forma de institución sin que haya surgido paralelamente una articulación arquitectónica de su poder. Pero las sociedades cambian y la memoria histórica es de corto aliento. Esta es la razón por la que ciertos edificios parecen extremadamente sorprendentes para un observador contemporáneo. Uno de esos edificios es el Hogar Infantil Público de Estocolmo. The year was 1633, when the master teacher Matthias got a permission for opening a first public children home at then peripheral Drottninggatan street in Stockholm. The building and surrounding facilities were completed 5 years later – 1638. The complex was designed by an unknown architect, but later documented and expanded by the city architect of Stockholm Johan Eberhard Carlberg in the period between 1729 – 1748.