The Art of Simplicity

Every summer, Swedes do something that can seem odd from the outside: we step out of our fully equipped homes and choose to spend our holiday weeks in a second home of much simpler standard. The massage shower is replaced by a cold outdoor shower. The air fryer by a charcoal grill. The dishwasher by washing up by hand. For many, life in a summer house is not about escaping the home itself, but about a voluntary lowering of standards that makes life easier to live: fewer things, fewer decisions, and more time spent outdoors.

Statistics from Statistics Sweden (SCB) for 2024 show that there are 628,164 second homes in Sweden. Is the summer house a kind of deprogramming, where the control, possessions, and routines of everyday life loosen their grip? Or is it a conscious method for freedom – a way of building away demands so that place, weather, and spontaneity are allowed to take the lead?

Architect and landscape architect Per Friberg (1920–2014) gave concrete form to this summer logic in his own summer house in Ljunghusen, in Skåne. He described it as a framework for a freer, simpler, and more modest life: “The sky, the sea, the heath, the house – we built as simply as possible, primitive, ascetic. We felt the heath demanded this kind of purism.”

“I find it hard to believe that the simplicity was economically driven,” says architect Gert Wingårdh, known to many as the host of SVT’s Husdrömmar*, who also knew Per personally. “It was rather a lifestyle choice - not needing more than what he chose to surround himself with.”

Along the gravel road Duvstråket, tucked in among the pine trees, large villas line up one after another. Many of them have grown over decades through extensions and additions—pools, garages, guest houses. But this was not how the area looked at first. The “Ljungen” of the Falsterbo peninsula was for a long time an open heathland, shaped by wind and grazing.

The first houses were built as early as the 18th century. The seaside resort developed later, around the turn of the 20th century, when plots were subdivided and sold and the area gradually filled with summer homes.

When Per built his summer house in 1960, he kept the scale modest, building lightly—raised on stilts, with large panes of glass facing the landscape. Gert, who has visited the house several times, recalls his first impression: “It’s a simple construction,” he notes. He sees a connection to Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Illinois. “Farnsworth House is built in steel, stone, and glass. This is a simpler story, made of pine, plywood, and glass—a kind of poor man’s elegance.”

The house, nestled into the landscape behind a wooden fence, consists of two light wooden pavilions with glazed façades, connected by timber decks and narrow walkways.

The first pavilion was built in 1960 and measures 50 square metres. The second, 32 square metres, was added later as the growing family needed more sleeping space. Together, the house gains a clear division: the larger pavilion, with a more open plan, for shared life; the smaller one for night-time, more withdrawn in its atmosphere.

A storm in 1999 destroyed the house, but it was restored to its original condition the following year. The rustic expression remains intact, and life here is pared back, with sparse solutions that stick to the essentials: a simple bathroom with a rail of wooden pegs, a kitchen with a small sink, and stools used as bedside tables in the bedrooms.

“I had forgotten how simply some of the beds are solved, in a bunk bed hidden behind a door. And how the dining table uses the house’s columns as its table legs,” says Gert. During the filming of SVT’s Så byggdes Sverige*, he spent a day in the house and was able to study the details up close again. “It’s interesting to think that the house is more than 60 years old. The beautiful thing is that there’s nothing you would want to change.”*

That same sense of effortlessness was present in Per as a person, Gert remembers. “He was very open. Very reasonable, and always interested in new impressions.” Per liked to call himself “Pelle,” and when you talked, the pen would come out almost immediately. Gert also recalls a time when they once sketched a house together, side by side, line by line. “Per was very easy to be with.”

In the spring of 2025, the summer house in Ljunghusen appeared on the market with an asking price of SEK 27 million.

In trade publications and local media, the discussion soon centred on a clear clash: the house was built for an unpretentious summer life, while the price tag pointed towards entirely different expectations. What happens when a pared‑back summer idea, largely intact, is suddenly valued as one of the most expensive plots in the area? Would the simplicity be allowed to remain, or was there a risk that the house would be demolished and replaced by something else—especially since it lacks formal protection as a listed building?

Gert recognises the situation from other houses with strong character that change hands. “One generation does something it truly believes in. The next generation, which may not share the same ideals, takes over and rebuilds. It’s only in the third generation that people look back and begin to appreciate the character of the house again. There’s a reason we’re seeing a real revival of 1960s architecture among young couples who want to restore houses.” And then the decisive question remains: “Will it even still be there by then—will it still be intact?”

At the time of writing, the summer house in Ljunghusen has not been designated a listed building. During the summer of 2025, however, news emerged that reassured many: according to reports, the new owners want to preserve it.