Petra Mede is the odd bird in the trio that will guide the viewers through the major effort about 100 years of Swedish building history. But the TV star has always been engaged in the subject.
I took extra courses in architecture at Komvux and when I was a Stockholm guide, it included some training on which buildings are in Stockholm, she says.
In "Så byggdes Sverige" the architect Gert Wingårdh, who made "Husdrömmar" in SVT, is brought together with the architecture critic Mark Isitt, known from "Grand designs" in TV4. In eight programs, they go through how Sweden came to be built.
The idea is that you should understand the environment that surrounds you. Why does a city look like this, says Gert Wingårdh.
Colored newsreels
With the help of old newsreels that have been colored with the help of AI and new technology that allows the hosts to walk around "inside" the clips of the different environments, it is told how, for example, the egnahemsrörelsen emerged. As well as how the big cities were transformed, the suburbs were built and how the industrial towns were characterized by the industries.
The program starts in 1925 and Gert Wingårdh notes that Sweden has gone from being one of the poorest countries to one of the richest during this period. At a rapid pace.
The question is whether any country has made such a move as Sweden has made during these 100 years, adds Mark Isitt.
No Söder romantic
With the help of AI, the program also tries to speculate about what Sweden might look like in 100 years.
It makes you as a viewer get an engagement, when you understand that you yourself are a part of history and that you create it right now, says Petra Mede.
Digging into housing history has been a bit of an eye-opener for Petra Mede, who herself lives in Stockholm, a city where many have fought for decades to preserve picturesque houses in poor districts from the past in now quite fashionable city districts like Södermalm.
I have really stopped romanticizing about the poor Söder, which I still think many people do, she says and continues:
If I have wanted to live there somewhere, I absolutely do not want to now. For me, it just feels like a reminder of how miserable it has been. Scary.
"Så byggdes Sverige" premieres on SVT on October 30.
Mikael Forsell/TT
Facts: "Så byggdes Sverige"
TT
The series is divided into eight parts: the villa street, the big city, the industrial town, the countryside, the dream village, the suburb, the center and the village.
