The Politics of Preservation : Urban regeneration, identity formation and governance in the creation of Old Linköping open air museum, 1944–1967

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to broaden and deepen the understanding of the urban regeneration and demolition processes taking place in Swedish cities between the 1940s and 1960s. Special attention is placed on how past and present layers of the city were used, conceptualized and legitimized by influential actors within the framework of urban governance. This is done by studying the function of the open air museum Old Linköping, formed in the 1940s aiming to preserve old houses through relocation, and the role of its administrative organ the Valla Board. The study departs from theories of urban spatio-temporal identity production, urban regime analysis and actor influence, employs the method of qualitative thematical content analysis, and covers the timespan 1944–1967. The research questions concern how Old Linköping’s function is described, legitimized and related to Linköping’s urban identity and urban regime; how processes of preservation, demolition and modernization are related to this function; the role of the Valla Board and its key actors within Linköping’s urban regime; and how the function of Old Linköping and Linköping’s urban regime changed during the studied time in relation to the national development of urban planning. The study shows that Old Linköping was assigned a broad societal function which became a positive identity-marker for Linköping, and a desirable incentive for the urban regime as it brought together several agendas. The objective of preservation became a legitimate part of this function through a focus on practical use and future value of the houses, and adherence to the consensus of modernization. The role of the Valla Board and its central actors, the initiator Lennart Sjöberg in particular, emerges as crucial for this process, and to the stability of the regime. Despite external contestation in the 1960s, the function of Old Linköping and the urban regime remained stable during the studied period. Its function, contestation and surrounding urban regime aligns with, but also nuances the general development.