Our time spent on Stockholm’s archipelago wasn’t as rich an experience as we had hoped in regards to being able to experience private saunas. We actually had a more successful time visiting private saunas whilst in the cities. We learnt that private saunas became common place in communal housing after staying in these types of accommodation over our stay. There wasn’t a great abundance of saunas that accompanied the summer homes as we had first expected after experiencing them on a previous research trip to Finland (despite being a neighbouring country with a very similar climate). Through the people that we met whilst visiting different Swedish saunas, we learnt that private saunas for rural houses is more common place in the northern countryside of Sweden where the sauna culture is a lot more in line with Finland. This culture embodies the simplicity of the sauna, in terms of function and design. The usage of the sauna is not seen as a luxury treat but a place to cleanse. This simplicity is echoed with the sauna often being a humble wooden hut style structure that will often be built out of material that is to hand and a simple wood burning stove again using wood such as birch that is readily available.
This connection to nature as an intrinsic part of the sauna culture experienced when we visited Hallesgarden just a 15 minute bus ride out of Stockholm city centre. Set within a nature park you are able to cool down after sauna sessions in the natural lake that is situated outside, feeling the wind against your skin and surrounded by leafy trees all becomes part of the sauna process. This place was recommended to us by our AirBnB host Daniel who we also met in the sauna, where we continued to discuss his experience and thoughts on Swedish bathing culture in comparison to other parts of the world. The sauna is a very social space not too dissimilar from an English pub, where regulars attend weekly and talk about a wide variety of topics. The comparison is useful for us to build our own knowledge and understanding of the culture. Another example of how entwined nature is to the sauna came from our visit to a private members sauna in Tantolunden park, Stockholm. The Tanto Bastun is a floating sauna that is a very simple cuboid structure that has a small changing room and a sauna within the cube. We have become accustomed to having a shower as standard in leisure centres and spas but here things have been stripped back. The only shower was from the water of the lake that the sauna itself is floating on. There we met up with Birger, a member who kindly let us use the sauna as guests but only if we met him at his favourite time to sauna… 6am! The sauna, situated within a park in the centre of a big city was very quiet this time of the morning, only to be disturbed by the movement of a Beaver swimming in the shared water that we viewed from the window of the sauna and then the booming voice of Birger who broke into traditional Swedish folk songs that he explained described seasonal changes. Having an abundance of beautiful waterways is utilised in Swedish bathing and with the two examples above show you how the sauna’s location alone is directed by natural forms such as water and where wind and silence also become part of this experience.
Not only have natural occurrences of water made a home for the humble sauna, but at Sunds Grustag – a stone quarry that houses water on Varmdo (a 45 minute bus journey from the centre of Stockholm) has become the spot for Sara Soderberg’s ‘The Public Sauna’. We arranged to meet with Sara to show us around her hand made clay sauna. Unfortunately that day the sauna wasn’t functioning due to damage that Sara was currently repairing, which was interesting to find out how the public interacted with the free self-service sauna. The Sauna is constructed from clay from the quarry, and concerns the Swedish notion of allemansratten that, as Sara puts it, “describes a public access right which permits most of the land in the country to be freely roamed and utilized”.
