Södrakull Frösakull by Mikael Olsson

I am not sure why, as humans, we are so interested in abandoned architecture, but the eeriness of ruined remnants of the past is so alluring. A couple of months ago, I posted about modern ruins, and now I have a mid-century modern treat for you. Swedish photographer, Mikael Olsson, spent six years (2000-2006) visiting two abandoned homes each summer, and documenting them photographically as time passed. Both homes were designed and lived in by famous modernist Swiss designer/architect  Bruno Mathsson. Olsson took two different approaches in photographing the homes. In the first home, Södrakull, Olsson never entered the home, taking all of the pictures from the outside through curtains and slightly obstructed windows. These photos have more of a peeping-tom feeling to them. In the second home, Frösakull, Olsson took pictures inside the house, moving around curtains and left behind furniture.

Mikael Olsson's website describes the project, it says:

"The work is an attempt to dig deep into the architecture and body of the buildings, and to uncover their intrinsic character amidst the omnipresent palpable deterioration. Through the photographic reproduction of the buildings, their subjacent architecture is revealed. They become psychologically charged stages and objects of projection for personal memories and histories...The houses display a characteristic obsession with air, sun and oxygen, and performed for Mathsson as setting for his interests in naturism, fitness and nudism. In this sense the photographs provide a condensation of modernist biologically oriented preoccupations, for which the houses are an extreme Swedish concentrate."

The photos are featured in galleries and in a book Mikael Olsson: Södrakull Frösakull, that tells the history and legacy of the home's designer Mathsson, and also tells the story of these two homes, and what happened to them since the mid-60's when they were built. The houses were abandoned after Mathsson's death in 1988 and were subsequently not taken care of by his estate. The photographs tell the story of these homes, and you can almost see what they were like in their glory, full of life and the functional beauty of the mid-centry modern age.

All images: Mikael Olsson