Craftsmanship

Our craftsmanship research deals with issues of how practical experience can deepen our understanding of our history and forgotten traditional expertise. It poses new questions for buildings, gardens, landscapes, materials, tools, machines, and the processes for working on them.
Craftsmanship research is a new phenomenon in academia, and deals with the knowledge of how to treat nature, materials, and objects by manufacturing, conserving, or growing. Our research is hands-on experimentation undertaken by craftsmen, rather than theoretical research by conservationists, ethnologists, historians, architects, etc. Our focus is on building trade procedures (actions and choices) in relation to the construction material and the desired quality and functionality of the result.
Our craftsmanship research utilizes working processes as a method of studying and analyzing, and the presentation of research results includes actual products of craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship research has many issues in common with the research being conducted by the Conservation and Built Environment groups.

Today our craftsmanship research is being conducted in a variety of projects in which the research is done by students at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels under the leadership of experienced craftsman. Instructors and doctoral candidates are involved in our craftsmanship research in a variety of ways through development work and thesis projects.

Working with craftsmanship in building construction are Associate Professors Peter Sjömar, Göran Andersson, Nils-Eric Anderson, Bengt-Arne Cramby, and Jonny Eriksson, along with doctoral students Patrik Jarefjäll, Tomas Karlsson, and Ulrik Hjort Lassen.

Working with the craftsmanship of garden and landscape conservation are Associate Professors, Anders Dagsberg, Bo Magnusson, and Nina Nilsson, along with doctoral students Tina Westerlund and Joakim Lilja.

Anneli Palmsköld, PhD, is conducting a research project called “Textile Recycling: On Material and Cultural Wear and Tear.” She is studying contemporary recycling practices using a flea market as starting point. The project is primarily tied to the Institutet för folklivsforskning at Nordiska museet and is essentially a study of craftsmanship related to the Swedish handicraft tradition.

The Craftsmanship Laboratory

The Craftsmanship Laboratory was launched in 2009 to preserve and develop crafts expertise in relation to problems in conservation practice. The Craftsmanship Laboratory is a project of the Department of Conservation, located in Mariestad and, starting in 2010, its mission is to be national in scope.
The laboratory is founded on the idea of developing laboratory environments for collaboration between the cultural heritage sector and the academic research community.
The Craftsmanship Laboratory is a national resource with the objectives to develop laboratories for collaboration between conservation institutions and academic research and education; to identify craftsmanship-related problems in conservation practice, develop solutions to those problems, and to publicize those solutions to ensure they are used in the field; and to preserve threatened crafts expertise through documentation, teaching, and exchange of knowledge between craftsmen in the educational sphere and those in the construction industry.
The steering committee for the Craftsmanship Laboratory includes the Swedish National Heritage Board, the County Council for West Sweden, the Church of Sweden, the National Property Board, the Department of Conservation at the University of Gothenburg, and the City of Mariestad.
Contact person: Gunnar Almevik