I’ve taken up the habit of walking through the rows of church cabins in Gammelstads Kyrkstad (church town) during the weekends. The silence and void of people makes you flinch at sudden movements or sounds and it is easy to let your thoughts wander. When I walked around the other day I noticed something I hadn’t before. A repeating pattern of some sort, I realised that most doors wore a resemblance. Certain normative symbols appeared every other step; triangles, squares etc. So I started to make a small survey in my head, grouping them according to appearances. I also took some photos of them. Now I did not look at all doors nor did I pass all cabins so this is quite summarily but it still gave a result; I identified four groups of doors.
The most usual one is the one with triangle at the top and standing panel on the bottom(ca 20)
The second group is a more classic door with X numbers of panels(ca 15)
Then I found a couple of doors with a fish bone pattern(2)
And one with a rounded archway(1)
As you can see the frequency show that some are more common than others. The cabins in them self are often quite simple, the red painted panels are from the beginning of the 20th century, but the outer doors and the window frames are more elaborated.
When one looks in between the cottages there are those who have a more old-fashioned appearance as well as some walls that have no panels.
There is a kind of beauty in those ruff edges and weather-beaten walls that has stood the test of time just as it is a bit ghost like as no one lives in them. They’re empty, silent, closed in by walls of snow and deserted ‘til the next church festival or festivity.
Magnus Reuterdahl
