Att följa decorum : Rumsdispositionen i den stormaktstida högreståndsbostaden på landet

Sammanfattning: During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the layout of the aristocratic country house throughout Europe changed considerably. The purpose of this thesis has been to study the layout of Swedish aristocratic country houses during the Era of Greatness. Three country houses in the county of Uppland have been examined: Per Brahe the Younger’s Bogesund, Carl Gustaf Wrangels’s Skokloster and Nils Bielke’s Salsta. Bogesund and Skokloster were erected starting in the 1640s and 1650s respectively. Salsta was rebuilt and extended during the 1670s and 1680s. The country houses have been studied from the start of these activities until the 1720s. A study of thirteen architectural treatises has been included in order to illustrate contemporary ideas about the aristocratic country house. By analysing categories of rooms, topology, access, denomination, use and also hanging of painting, the layout of rooms have been examined. The identity of an aristocratic country house could be expressed by e.g. its topology, use and choice of interior decoration and paintings. Planning of buildings was closely linked to decorum. Decorum meant in this context something both socially and aesthetically appropriate. The three country houses expressed different types of ideas about the use of a building. The layout of Bogesund gave opportunities for several encounters between residents and visitors. In Skokloster the few staircases rendered some possibilities of unexpected encounters, even though there was strict spatial differentiation in social classes, gender and age. In Salsta with its many small suites and adjoining antechambers and more staircases, the rooms could fulfil their specialised function without blending of people of different social categories. The layout of Bogesund and Skokloster could therefore been seen as more generative than the conservative and confirming one of Salsta.