Sofiero Slottspark. En plats som tar sig en modal ton

Abstract

Sofiero – Palatial Garden with a Modal Tune

In 1905, the Swedish Crown Prince and his wife received Sofiero Palatial Garden as a wedding gift. The park was in a state of neglect but with great skill, energy and passion the royal couple succeeded in transforming it into an ‘English garden’ that retains its special character to this day. Sofiero at that time displayed strong contrasts in scenery because of its original conception.

The Park is open to visitors today. The material presented here is mostly based on own observations and the conversations I have had during my three-month long sojourn with various visitors and employees of the park. I have paid special attention to the people’s bodily attitude to the park rather than the fact of being in it.

The study describes and analyses what signification the park may possess for people’s lives. From a phenomenological perspective, I study not only how people dwell in the park but also how the park, with its renowned style and musical mode, resonates in them.

The contents of the park are characterized by its melodious form, a modal tune created by a central tonality, in itself originating from the relations of notes within the scale. Thanks to these unanticipated, atonal dissonances the overall quality of the experience is enhanced. Thus, this feeling of transition does not prompt losing touch with the existent primary tone and melody. The material presented here also shows how the visitor are able to capture the musical mood of the park, and how it stirs reflection on existential queries that often embrace tension between determinism and freedom; in short, a feeling of being in the world, of existence. The witness-reports suggest the experience of temporality and transience: how this feeling is not only connected to space but also to time, to the past, present and future, to how things were, how they are now and how they might come to be.