Slussen - Water under the bridge?
During the fall of 2011, the future of the landmark
bridge and water lock “Slussen” in Stockholm was the
subject of a very heated public debate, not only in
Stockholm but the rebuilding efforts became a national
concern.
Slussen is the connecting point between the two islands
Gamla Stan and Södermalm in central Stockholm, and
has since it was built in 1935 been part of the city
infrastructure. When it was built it was one of the most
modern traffic solutions in Europe and received several
prizes for its progressive and utilitarian design. However,
the need for Slussen as a central connecting point has
to a large degree diminished. It has for many years been
a known fact that Slussen as a structure is falling apart,
and needs to be rebuilt or preserved. The decision process for this can be traced back as far as the early 1990s
when the question was first brought to the table. To
this date three different architectural designs have been
agreed upon without the rebuilding actually starting. In
the spring of 2011, the municipality administration in
Stockholm presented their final architectural design on
how to rebuild Slussen and in the fall of 2011 a formal
decision was finally agreed upon.
The story of Slussen is not unique regarding decisionmaking processes for large public building projects in
Sweden. Due to a bigger number of stakeholders, most
often regular people that feel closely connected to or
heavily engage in the debate feel the need to express
their opinion. Public decision-making processes may
therefore in Sweden take a surprisingly long time.
Written by: Emma Weiner & Tomas Ahlmark
This could be explained by a very strong sense of common
ownership of public assets in the Swedish society, especially
when compared to the United States. What the state owns
you also own is the underlying sentiment. Thus, Slussen is
for many not only a public building project, but it’s being
viewed with almost the same carefulness and attention as
with rebuilding a private summer house or patio. However,
reality is that Slussen is of slightly greater proportions and it
is shared with the large and opinionated public.
The issue lively debated is that the architectural design has
been broadly criticized for only catering to a few specific
commercial interests and therefore being a poor design as
it is located in a very central part of Stockholm. It has been
claimed to be focusing too much on an infrastructure solution that no longer is relevant and it has also been argued
that the new design is unaesthetic and a commercial exploitation of important cultural values.
The public criticism was so massive that protest lists were
signed by thousands of people and new alternative designs
on how to rebuild Slussen were developed. Worth mentioning is that the distinctive Benny Andersson, a former
member of the pop group ABBA, took a leading position in
the debate and presented an alternative design that in the
public view – newspapers, media and public opinion – often
deemed superior to the one proposed by the municipality
council.
Despite all protests and criticism, the city council decided to
stick to the original design. With that being said, the building is not scheduled to start until 2016, as there have been
some 400 appeals to Miljödomstolen (The Environmental
Court), the county council and several other governmental
authorities that have the power to stop, postpone or force
adjustments to the project. Thus, the debate is far from
over.