Answer to submitter. Democracy is no excuse for failed new lock

Community builder Patrick Öhrström treats The criticism of the new design of Slussen, but misses many points in their argument.

Öhrström describes the new Slussen as the result of a democratic process. This may happen, he is right in the matter, but even if the process would be considered carried out according to democratic principles, this hardly makes the architecture and design a higher quality. Should we be satisfied with an architectural, urban planning and landscape architectural shortcoming just because the process qualifies as democratic?

Furthermore, Öhrström fails to describe the previous design, characterized by the large « four -leaf clover » around the centrally placed Kolingsborg (to name a few of the « old » lock attributes) as « the paradise of the motor » and that « it was constructed at another time when the car was salvation on everything. » Unfortunately, this says more about the writer than about the place.

For the one as primarily Made up by car in the inner city, Slussen was of course a prominent device that solved the complex needs of the motorism on the site. For the rest of us, which moved on foot, the lock was a place rich in the nests and springs, almost hidden places in a jumble of subway tunnels that opened up in the interior room with dome roof (with acoustics suitable for spontaneous choral song) and out to open terraces.

Here was perhaps the city’s most centrally located forgotten mall. Stores of unclear cuts, unexpected and surprising to find so centrally, together with Debaser Slussen and Kolingsborg with their pulse and their great impact on nightlife. The site was permeated with constant change and dynamics. Small stores established themselves and disappeared, it was felt that there was room for experiments here and to dare to test themselves.

Unfortunately, Öhrström seems to suffer from what many community planners suffer from: a need for every space in the city to be planned meticulously and the areas that have unclear (read: non -economic) programs to be deleted from our common urban space. What we get left is a city that is becoming increasingly equal, where measurable economic values ​​are rewarded and the culture ends up in the wake. It may seem trivial, but this is a pretty important thing and unfortunately Stockholm has become a clear example of how effective one can create a city with widespread concert death, where the culture is pressed ever further out in the periphery and the inner city has only a range for the better mediated.

A concept As many community builders and city planners could be interested in is « Terrain Vague ». Simply put, it is an idea of ​​the need for unprogrammed areas in our communities and cities.

These create dynamics in the physical environment, and partly they create the opportunity for the residents to take over, occupy, change and make them and the city their own. This too, with good arguments, could be described as a more democratic process and not least create a more interesting city with greater dynamics, contrasts and life.

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