ABSTRACT
Many urban residents in Sweden have summerhouses in the countryside. This chapter addresses the issue of why a summerhouse can be so important to people. As a young architect I trained to design convenient urban dwellings with high sanitary standards and good service and observed that many people leave these well-designed apartments as soon as they have some days off. They go away to their ‘second home’ which may be a small simple cottage with considerably lower sanitary standards than their urban dwelling. Some do not even have a toilet and the kitchen is basic, uncomfortable, with a wood stove and without running water.
