Vita husen (The White Houses)

Extract from the book Vita husen: A short walk from the house in which I grew up there is a little park with a grove of trees, a large boulder, a jungle gym and a merry-go-round. When I was a child there was also a tall pine decorated with a string of lights leftover from Christmas. With some exertion I could climb up to its top, from there I had a grand view of the small white houses nestled in florid greenery among fruit trees, flower and vegetable gardens. The size and shape of the houses varied, some had mansard roofs and porches others were functionalism's cubist boxes, but all were the same color. They were all white... ...The name of the park is Sundberg's Park. It is located in the iron mill town of Överum in Tjust County in the Northern Province of Småland. Carl Sundberg was the general manager of that industry from 1920 until his death in 1954. It has been said that he was the one who ordered that all the houses were to be painted white. The "egnahem" houses with white stucco are still a familiar sight in town, but they are becoming fewer as they are being repainted in a variety of colors or as the stucco withers and are being replaced by wood paneling. So one day I decided to photograph the white stucco houses while there are still some of them left. The photographs in this book were shot in 2003 and complemented within 2015. The house I grew up in was built after Sundberg's passing, it was a brown Hultfredshus