Sven Larsson

Book Excerpt: Building the Nordic Gärdsgård

Gärdsgård - A fence that sounds like a forest Stand beside an old Swedish hay field at sunrise. The silver-grey rails of the wooden fence creak in the warming air; resin trapped inside the spruce expands and the rails chafe against each other. That fence is a gärdsgård—a rail fence is made from wood only, without metal nor plastics, held together by geometry, friction, and tradition stretching all the way to the age of the Vikings.