Landskap, jaktvillor & kurhotell Arkitektur och turism i Västjämtland 1880—1915

Sammanfattning: The thesis deals with the fast and radical changes of villages and communities in the mountain area of Western Jämtland at the turn of the century. It describes how these changes are reflected in architecture and settlements.The first three chapters give the background and describe the historical scene. There is also a passage describing the early activities of the Swedish Touring Club in Jämtland and the simple buildings which were put up to make the mountains more accessible for tourist purposes. Tourism and tourists are looked upon in a local, a national and an international perspective.The last three chapters are devoted to the main theme of the thesis: a description and an analysis of the architecture and the buildings brought about by early tourism.The tourists, who came to hunt and fish, played a significant role in the development of the province and its settlements during the breakthrough of tourism. Some of them managed to acquire great territories where they built imposing wooden hunting villas in an architectural style foreign to this area. The owners of the villas were Swedes or Englishmen, most of them wholesale dealers or timber-merchants.The majority of the hotels and boarding houses built in Western Jämtland were situated in Mörsil, Storlien and Åre. During a relatively short period Åre was transformed from a small farming village to a tourist resort of international standing. At the turn of the century Åre was referred to as "a Swedish Davos" or "our Swedish Switzerland". The Jämtland of tourism, as it developed towards the end of the 19th century, was a setting for people belonging to a new social class. It was created to meet their needs and their ideals. It was not, as in the rest of Sweden, industrialism, but tourism, that changed the traditional village scene.