RLS From Modern to Post-Modern in Stockhoim James C. O'Connell In the 1960s architects, city plan- ners, and curious travelers from all over the world visited Sweden's capi- tal city, Stockholm, to see the new ‘towns springing up on its outskirts. The author, a professional in com- ‘manity development, now views these new towns from an ‘80s perspective and shows how much the taste in community living has changed in less than twenty years. Alluent, efficient Sweden was a model combining womb-lo-tomb so- cial services and Modern, Func- tionalist architecture. Bus tours of the city even included the largest of the new towns, Vaellingby, along with more traditional excursions to the Royal Palace and the Baltic Sea archipelago. In the late 1980s, commercial group tours of the new towns are 00 longer offered. The social experi- ‘ment and the austere Functionalist architecture have ceased 10 be nov elties. Yet Stockholm’s new towns deserve attention more than ever. ‘They are not sensational, but they provide an unmatched textbook ex- ample of changing postwar styles of architecture and urban design, My wife and I prepared a tour of Stockhoim’s new towns by writing to the Swedish Institute, a remark- able organization that assists foreign planners, physicians, and other pro- fessionals to meet their Swedish counterparts. When we arrived at our hotel in Stockholm, we found 2 large packet of information that had been deliv- ered for us on recent developments in the city, much of it published in English. A tour of the capital guided by city pianner-architect Lars Sune Gustafsson was arranged for the next morning. Gustafsson took one of his July vacation days to give us an hour-long slide presenta- tion on Stockholm’s urban develop- ‘ment and then to drive us to sites of significant examples of postwar planning. Our guide, a partisan of the emerging Post-Modernist camp within Stockholm’s department of planning and building control, gave a survey of Sweden's Modernist shortcomings, pointing toward the coming wave of Post-Modern his toricism, decoration, and redesign, ‘The beginnings of Stockholm’s new towns ‘Our first stop was Arsta, the first seif-contained satelite town, com- pleted in the 1940s, At that time Sweden was creating an egalitarian socialist state that provided low- cost, mass-produced housing for the thousands of workers migrating to the cities for industrial jobs Following the model of Le Corbu- sier, the Swiss-born French architect and artist, Arsta consists of free standing mediumerise apartment buildings surrounded by green space. The piece de resistance is a conerete plaza bordered by a com- ‘munity center, cinema, and small shopping gallery and office build- ing. In 1940, the American writer Lewis Mumford’s book The Culture of Cities was translated into Swed- ish, and Stockholm planners (00k to heart Mumford’ somewhat anti-ur- tban message about building small self-contained towns around commu- nity centers At Arsta, the community center is still used for mestings and lec- tures, but the cinema is closed and the office-shopping galery looks faded. Thomas Paulsson’s Scandi- navian Architecture (1958) ex- Public ar ot ToCentralen Metro Station In'Stockhoins. The stthouette om the cetl- Ing represent construction workers plained that Arsta’s center “was meant to guard democratic princi piles, to raise young people in this spirit, and to encourage everyone to be democratic citizens.” Like much Modernist architecture imbued with this behavioristic ideology, Arsta is a drab place, more apt to level than toexalt Following the sequence in which the communities were constructed, we next visited Vaellingby (1955)— with $0,000 people the largest and ‘most iniluentiai of Stockholm's new towns. Vaellingby was the first sat- ellite town to include housing, shop- ping, and industry. According o city planner Gustafsson, this town embodies the boredom of the architectural schoo! of functionalism. Vaellingby’s pe- destrian-only shopping center, di rectly above the subway stop, is the showpiece. Autos travel on perime- ter roadways separate from the inte rior paths for pedestrians and cy- clists, The shopping center is composed of several pavitions from which stores face onto open walk- ways. The pavilions, fat-topped lass boxes with unadorned metal canopies, were criticized by Paulsson in 1959 for their “enthusi- astic” details and lack of “stringent and sober temperament.” Today, ‘one wishes the architecture of the shopping center seemed more “en- thusiastic.” The tremendous housing con- struction boom of the next fifteen years unfortunately followed ‘Vaellingby’s functionalist lead. Such communities as Tensta and Rinkeby ultimately provoked widespread dis- satisfaction with the alienating envi- ronments of Stockholm’s new towns. Gustafsson posited that May 1971 provided the turning point for Swed- ish urban planning, when hundreds of people protested the planned cut- ting of monumental elm trees 10 make way for a new subway station in central Stockholm’s revered Kungstraedgarden (King’s Garden), The protesters saved the trees and began the “Green Wave,” which has achieved extensive environmen- tal reforms including urban design‘more sensitive than Functionalism 1 human yearnings and comfort. By 1979 when Kista—the next ‘New Town we visited—was com- pleted, alterations had been made in the satellite environment. The Kista shopping center, the largest in Swe- den, was enclosed like a shopping mall. The layout and appearance of the stores was left to shop owners, who show little more taste than their American counterparts, Plants and skylights form the most promi- nent decorative features. The 3,500 Kista housing units display greater variety and are linked by more in- teresting pathways than those in Vaellingby. Yet Kista still keeps pe- destrians apart from auto traffic on imerior pathways, an arrangement which diminishes urban vitality Perhaps the most interesting aspect, of Kista is its industrial district which, with 20,000 workers, has be- come Sweden's Silicon Valley. ‘Our next stops, two suburban communities from the current de- cade, were Dalen (1982) and Skarpnaeck (still under construc- tion). Both show increased attention to public amenities and to engaging design. Dalen’s 1,500 apartments, built in 45 different layouts, are clustered around greens named for hazel, rowanberry, and otiver plants introduced to give character to cach ‘open space. Skarpnaeck reflects 2 Post-Mod- em and pro-urban departure from Stockholm's previous satellite towns. A main street accomodating. cars and pedestrians has been re- introduced to serve as the primary spatial link of this 8,000-resident community. Stores in the ground floors of apartment buildings lining ‘Skarpnaeck Avenue resemble those in the inner-city districts of Stock- hhoim and other nineteenth-century European cities ‘Where housing is set back from the street, brick garden walls main- tain the street line and make the street seem truly like a room of the city. The Post-Modern style is eve dent in the design of the residential buildings, which have decorative window bays and balconies, Gustafsson said he hopes Swedish architects finally are designing buildings reflective of the tradi- tional genius loci Most striking about Stockholm's new towns was their physical auton ‘omy. Surrounded by field, forest, and highway, they fail to form a co- herent landscape with the rest of the metropolitan area. The visitor hhas no sense of being in the sa place as the atmospheric European central city with its medieval Old ‘Town island and the turn-of-the-cen- tury quays On our way back to town, Gustafsson pointed out twemtieth- century landmarks which he consid cred Post-Modern in spirit, sinee they captured the genius loci—the Gamla Enskede district, Woodland Cemetery, and City Hall. Gamla Enskede is an early twentieth-cen- tury suburb whose single-family houses resemble rural Swedish cot- tages with pitched red-tie roofs and brightly colored shutters. Woodland Cemetery and its crematorium (191541940) were designed by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, two modernists who created a deeply touching series of groves of high- crowned pines, between which run lines of simple grave markers. The children’s graves are in 2 grove of white birches signifying the purity of their souls, ‘Tongue-in-cheek, Gustafsson re marked that Stockholm City Hall, designed by Ragnar Oestberg in 1923, is an early example of Swedish Post-Modernism. Gustafsson pointed out that its steeples, brick- work, and northern Renaissance detailings respect traditional Swed- ish styles, themes, and materials. The striking gold mosaics in the Gilded Hall and the profusion of statues, reliefs, and weather vanes Project the fantasy image of a his- toric town hall on the Baltic Sea, ‘Gustafsson remarked that his de- partment’s current mission is to re- ‘design much of what has been built, Perhaps the greatest challenge is to create in the new tovns the same "B/May-June 1987 rich urban texture that has moved travel writer Jan Morris to call Stockholm “the most beautiful capi- tal in Europe.” This challenge should not be beyond reach, as ‘Stockhoim’s planners have proved themselves skilful at executing sig- nificant urban plans Stockholm’s metro system Most of Stockhoim’s satellite towns may seem characterless, but the city's metro system is one of this era's most successful attempts to create # sense of place. More than half of the ninety-nine metro stations are decorated with artwork, much of it quite remarkable, We called the Swedish Institute, asking for printed material suggesting ‘metro stops to visit. Within an hour, ‘Swedish Transport public relations officer Archibald Rosenwald ar- Fived at our hotel to guide us on a two-hour tour of ten metro stops. ‘The Stockholin metro systera ‘opened in 1950 to link the new satel lite towns with the central ci Supported by one of the world’s first “one percent for art” pro ‘grams, more than seventy Swedish artists have produced works in ev- ery major style. The metzo stations completed since the mid-1970s are ‘complete artistically conceived envi= ronments carved out of granite, whereas most earlier stations display a singie mural or a piece of sculp- ture, ‘The most interesting metro sta- tions are those that indicate a sense of place. At Radhuset (1975), a ‘monumental chimney resembles @ classical column, and brown hay bins recall a factory and a haymarket that used to stand in the aboveground Kungsholmen district. ‘The Kungstraedgarden station (1977), was @ green cavern filled with fountains, statues, and pat- temed terrazzo floors, indicating the former royal park overhead, Rosen- waid gave us 2 special preview of a exit under construction that Features # model of the elm trees that were to be cut down for new cexit in May 1971 - the event that gal- vanized the Green Wave and ob-Livable Places PLACE /May-Jusie 1987 structed the construction of this exit for a decade and a half. ‘Our favorite station was ‘Sundybergs Centrum (1985), which ‘nad sculptural facades of a former local shopping bazaar, the town hall, a bakery.a typical apartment build- ing, and 2 futuristic dweiling shaped like a windowless spaceship. Oppo- site each construction, a mural indi- cated a possible view from that building. For instance, cyclists were dismounting in the rain opposite the town hall facade. ‘Another remarkable station is Soina Centrum (1975), a total envi- ronment with an ecological mes- sage, The entire cavern is painted to resemble the Swedish countryside, with evergreen forests, farmers abandoning their homesteads, a ‘moose crossing a country road, and an airplane spraying pesticides. The dark orange sky, covering the entire station, produces an ominous im- pression, One of the newest and brightest stations is Rissne (1985), conceived a8 a “history schoolbook” by Made- eine Lundh Dranger. A time line and 2 series of maps in various col- ‘ors explain the history of polities, art, literature, science, technology, and religion from the age of the Egyptian pyramids to the present. This would be an edifying station in which to await one’s daily com- muter train, At the T-Centralen Metro Station (separate works from 1957 to i984), the extensive complex beneath the Central Railroad Station, 2 blue grotto with painted leaves and vines wittily included silhouettes of the craftsmen who built the station ‘Somewiat disappointing were the stations at Huvudsta (1985) and Hallonbergen (1975). Huvudsta’s hanging colored cylinders, called the Hanging Gardens, are a minimalist, abstraction which might be missed by many passengers. Hailonbergen is a giant crayon-on-white children's drawing, Individual children’s drawings might seem pleasant, but an entire cavern s0 decorated can be disturbing. One of the surprising points con- veyed by our guide was that $2.1 million of vandalism is committed annually in the Stockholm metro sysiem, When vandals mark up a subway car, Stockholm Transport takes it out of service and cleans it to discourage further grafitti. Even in eficient and orderly Sweden, we were disconcerted to learn, vandal- ism mars public spaces and monu- ments In any case, Stockholm’s metro system may be the single most out- standing example of modern Swed- ish planning and culturel expression, And every year, Stockhoim Trans- port enhances this remarkable pub- lic museum with new artwork. Freestanding apartment towers in Vaellinghy outside Stockholm, The author says thet {uch developments, surrounded by feld and highway. often ail cape wtih the rest of the metropolitan area orm a cokarent lan Appreciating Stockholm’s urban his- tory The visitor to Stockholm should find it easy to see the satellite towns. They can be reached by the metro system and may be appre- hended in a short stroll, making them convenient even fora brief visit For information on attractions, history, architecture, and various as- pects of social policy, Swedish insti- tutions are unsurpassed. To obtain = wide array of printed materials, much of it published in English, or to arrange professional visits, con- tact the Swedish Institute, Box 7434, $.103 91 Stockholm, Sweden. The Institute's helpful information department and a large bookstore are stationed at Sweden House on the Kungstraedgarden. ‘Other sources of information for the visitor in Stockhoim are the Cul- ture House, Sergelstorg (which fas six floors of exhibits, art galleries, a library, information booths, and cul- tural events) and Inforum, Drottninggatan 6 (displays, books, and information from governmental agencies dealing with environmental issues). Stockholm also offers a remark- able selection of museums, several of which explain the city’s urban development, Among these are Stockholm City Museum, Peder Myndesbacke 6 (exhibits on the city’s development from prehistoric to present times) and the Architec- tural Museum, Skeppsholmen (dis- plays, photos, and archives on Swed- ish architecture over the past hundred years). More rural, yet cer- tainly pertinent, is Skansen, in the Djurgarden, Established in the 1890s as the world’s first open-air museum, Skansen has 150 buildings tracing the folk life, crafts, and architectural history of Sweden's major provinces, It is an attraction not to be missed. @ James C. O'Connell, who ie a Partners imemiber i Deputy Commisstoner for Community Development in Springield, Maze’ be te the author of wanton artes ‘om arban planning and crave. ard has een published bythe Boston Globe on ‘rast! and Poland.