Jumping Towards the Future

Between the late nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century numerous ski-jumping towers were built all across Sweden. This accumulation of large, monumental sporting facilities occurred even though ski jumping never attracted large numbers of practitioners. The building of such towers in the southern and central parts of Sweden, where snowy winters are far from guaranteed, is of particular interest. Today, most of the ski-jumping towers in the southern half of Sweden have been torn down, but they have left a hidden and forgotten material heritage. This paper examines the abandoned places of ski jumping, where fragmented material remains give witness to a phenomenon that once was of central importance in shaping and expressing ideals and social identities in the modernization of Sweden. The ski jumps became arenas for a new and spectacular sport that drew large crowds, but they also became landmarks and monuments of progress and prosperity in the new modern age.