The days of shame are over when the million program reaches 50 years

The million program has long been shed and shamed. But it has not always been so.

- It is an extremely important but overlooked part of architectural history, says housing researcher Erik Stenberg.

The exhibition Flying Concrete at Arkdes in Stockholm broadens the perspective. The Million Program was born thanks to new technology: pre-cast concrete elements enabled large-scale housing construction not only here, but worldwide.

- During the post-war period, the concrete block became the symbol of a new future and of building a new society, says Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, first curator of Arkdes.

- Film, poster art, drawings and animations from the time show a utopian image of the concrete floating high above the ground, says Hugo Palmarola who, together with Pedro Ignacio Alonso, curated the exhibition based on several years of research.

And so it was in this global, upbeat spirit that the million-dollar program started around Sweden. But in the 70s and 80s the wind turned.

- City planner Igor Dergalin, who among other things designed Rinkeby and Tensta in Stockholm, was asked what the biggest individual cause of the criticism was, and whether it emerged - or came to a blow. He answered with one sentence: the student revolt in Paris in 1968, says Erik Stenberg and continues:

- There and then the right to co-decision was born, you were tired of planning over one's head and that someone else decided how to live. Therefore, criticism grew.

- You can say that the concrete block, which was previously raised to the skies, fell to the ground, Hugo Palmarola describes.

In Russia, it is now a New Year's tradition to see the drama comedy The Irony of Destiny (1975) by Eldar Rjazanov, where the protagonist ends up in an exact replica of his own apartment - in the wrong city. And it was precisely the view on concrete housing that personalityless and anonymous took hold.

So did the dream of the Swedish million program crashed. But maybe the criticism is one-sided?

- I think about class and what it represents. And on how the million program today has become an emblem for the whole of Sweden's social problems, says artist Viktor Rosdahl, who himself grew up in a workhouse in the million program area Elineberg in Helsingborg.

Viktor Rosdahl often paints his growing up environment.

- I'm fascinated by these environments, it can be a desolate and nice atmosphere and you feel small in the great architecture, he says and develops:

- There is a lot of beauty in what is barren. I associate beauty more with such environments, whether it is architecture or nature, than with the type of children in Bullerbyn.

50 years after the million program's birth, Viktor Rosdahl is not alone in being fascinated by the concrete houses. Architects around the world are demanding Swedish millionaire program expertise, and believe that Sweden should be proud of the sustainable, smartly planned housing that is both easy to redecorate and maintain.

- If you look at the houses from a hundred-year perspective, I am absolutely convinced that it will prove that the million-program houses are far superior to what we are building today. We will re-evaluate the million program and see it as just as much as the 40's functionary, says Erik Stenberg.