The nordic man of the street

The “common man of the street” marks a crucial shift in post-war architectural discourse, as the focus moves from formal aspects of buildings to the everyday life of people. Sweden anticipated this shift with the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition and the book-manifesto “acceptera”, advocating a more human- and context-centered model. This approach matured in the 1940s with “New Empiricism” and became the qualifying element of the architecture of “folkhemmet” (1932-1976).