Trädgården som lantbrukets förebild i 1800-talets Skåne

By studying horticulture as part of the programme of agrarian reform and the mass educational aspirations characterising 19th century Skåne, this article seeks to amplify and problematise the image of the garden as an objekt and to contribute towards the discussion as to which significatory parts constitute an ideal Scanian (Skåne) agrarian landscape of the kind initially presented. The argument takes as its starting point the design of the Alnarp agricultural Institute as a Scanian model estate, scrutinising the role of the garden in the 19th century as an example to agriculture, in the development of the Alnarp Agricultural Institute as an instrument of mass education. The man-made environment of Alnarp, its buildings, gardens, parks and landscape are here interpreted as a consciously framed spatial entity in which a many-faceted programme of historical, didactic nature is discernible. The role of the garden as a prototype and starting ppint of agricultural development and the architectural vocabulary of the main building are central to the spatial analysis. The practical and theoretical communication of the garden as a pappern throughout the Alnarp Institute's sphere of influence is analysed here as a programme for turning Skåne into the garden of Sweden