A sunny Sunday in October, and the weekend for the annual architecture festival Open House Stockholm, was a good day to visit Lådan (The Box). The small house on the island of Lovön in Stockholm is rarely open to the public, but we had the opportunity to go inside and explore an early example of compact living.
Lovön is situated in western Stockholm and there are various ways of getting there with public transport. We went for the water route and jumped on commuter ferry 89 a short walk from where we live. The glorious autumn weather definitely showed the benefits of living in a city made up of islands as we travelled across the water soaked in sunshine.
As we got off at Ekerö we then jumped on bus 177 up to Lovön and walked the last bit across fields covered in autumnal colours, showing that you really don’t have to get far outside of central Stockholm to experience nature.
Lådan is all about living small
Lådan was the first home of architect Ralph Erskine and his family when they moved to Sweden in the 40s. It’s a 20-square-metre house, full of clever design solutions and with a focus on function and flexibility. At the centre of the house is a fireplace that provides both warmth and a space to sit together. There’s a fold-down table that transforms into an office space and there’s a bed that you lower down from the ceiling to transform the living space into a bedroom. Lådan is an architectural gem that truly shows we don’t need a lot of space (or stuff) to create a stylish, practical and cosy home.
The original building got neglected over time, but because of the architectural interest, a copy was built in the 80s and placed in its current location on Lovön, with ArkDes in charge of keeping it open to the general public. As it’s very rarely open, Lådan was very busy with people of all ages wanting to check it out on Sunday. I’m thrilled there was such an interest but it of course meant that we had to queue to even get in to the house, and it was tricky to take photos that weren’t all covered in people. It was great to be able to go inside though, but I’ll probably head back on some other, slightly more obscure time, to be able to view the building on its own, only surrounded by pine trees.
Photo credit: as the house was so crowded I wasn’t able to take any photos from the living space of Lådan – the one above is therefore borrowed from ArkDes, taken by Åke E:son Lindman