Scandinavian Vernacular

Scandinavian vernacular buildings are made of timber. Most farmhouses and storehouses have walls of horizontal logs joined at the corners by notched joints. Many rural roofs were covered in turf laid over several layers of birch bark, which kept water out. In Sweden and Finland, wooden buildings were often painted falu red, a paint made from iron oxide left over at the Falun copper mine, mixed with linseed oil and rye flour. Medieval stave churches use a different system: vertical posts, called staves, stand on a raised timber sill frame that keeps them off the damp ground.

Urnes Stave Church in Norway, built around 1130, has a north portal carved with interlaced animals and snakes. Borgund Stave Church (1180-1181) has stacked tiers of roofs with dragon heads on the gables. Heddal, from the early 13th century, is the largest surviving stave church. Skansen in Stockholm holds about 150 buildings moved from across Sweden, including the 16th-century Älvros farmhouses.

This is a regional tradition built by farmers and local carpenters rather than by named architects. Turf roofs covered most rural houses from the Viking period, and until the late 19th century they were the most common roof on Norwegian log houses. Norway may once have had between 1,000 and 2,000 stave churches, most built between 1150 and 1350; 28 survive. Falu red came into use on wooden buildings in the 17th century, partly to imitate the red brick of wealthier houses.

During the 19th century, tile and corrugated iron replaced turf on most roofs outside remote areas. At the same time, collectors began preserving old buildings: Artur Hazelius opened Skansen in 1891, the model for later open-air museums. In Norway, the dragestil (dragon style) of about 1880-1910 drew on stave churches and excavated Viking ships, as at the Frognerseteren restaurant (1891) and the Holmenkollen Park Hotel (1894) in Oslo. Turf roofs are still laid on new cabins in Norway.