Light Volumes: Art and Landscape by Monika Gora 9783034610391

Citation preview

1

2

Light volumes Art and L a n dsc ape BY Mon ika Gor a edited by Lisa Diedrich

Foreword by Sune Nordgren

Transgress

Fearless Lightness

7

12

Introduction by Lisa Diedrich

The Glass Bubble

The Glass Bubble, Malmö The Sheltered Tree, Iceland The Garden Settlers, Falun Stensjö Terrace, Malmö Travelling Kitchen Garden, Göteborg Ein Volumen aus Licht

16 18 20 29 29 32

Ein Volumen aus Licht, Vienna A Drop of Light, Stockholm A Drop of Light, Helsingborg Bridal Train, Malmö

34 36 43 43 45

A Space to Explore, Places to Remember

46

Måns Holst-Ekström Jimmys Jimmys, worldwide The Bubble, Sundsvall / Malmö Common Ground, Umeå Odenskog, Östersund Durus and Mollis, Växjö La Familia, Malmö Metamorphosis Oncological Clinic, Lund Parapluie, Helsingborg Silver Tree, Luleå Metamorphosis, Linköping

50 52 60 60 64 68 72 78 80 85 86 92

Table of Contents

the Library Plaza The Library Plaza, Landskrona Homo Ludens, Karlstad DN Plaza, Stockholm

96 98 102 106

Pat the Horse

Summer-Winter, Malmö The Rain Fountain, Malmö Pat the Horse, Malmö

108 110 110 114

Shared Ideas Gunilla Bandolin

122

X–X

126 128 134 140 142



Garbage Museum, travelling through Sweden X–X, Limhamn Sweden / Tårnby Denmark Kitchen Midden of Our Time, Falkenberg We Started with Throwing Everything Out, Lund

The Garden of Knowledge Bus Shelter, Härnösand The Garden of Knowledge, Malmö Castles in the Air, Malmö Paradise, Malmö

146 148 150 152 156

Two Piers Two Piers, Sidensjö

158 160

Elsa or What is an Experience?

166

Monika Gora Project Data

170



Monika Gora

204



biographies of the authors



words of thanks, credits, imprint



207 208

6

Transgress Sune Nordgren

We live in a transgressive era. The conventional boundaries ­between

the arts have been erased. Creative people do not remain where they are supposed to be; they are no longer bound by their traditional roles. Schools and training, materials or even trade unions used to serve to define different disciplines: working with textiles and clay was considered craft, steel and plastic was design, bronze and oil paint was art. This is definitely not the case anymore. These days architects, artists, and designers work together in interdisciplinary groups, each with different tasks but shared responsibilities. Quite often they ­prefer loose groupings or cooperatives to individual artistry in an attempt to discard the myth of the exalted, but lonely, genius. Grad­ually these new formations are turning the grey zones between different means of expression into clear and transparent transit spaces. is the perfect exponent of this transgressive era. She never asks whether the project at hand is art or architecture, or something else. The answer is the result: a clear idea transformed into reality and mediated so that others can experience it. She sees herself as a member of a team – a new project, a new team – where her contribution is indisputable, but where she also relies on other people’s competence, trusting them to do their job. No one can be a genius in isolation. Monika Gora

Monika Gora has worked with people with ­diverse professions and skills, frequently with other architects and artists, engineers and technicians, planners and builders – not to mention politicians, administrators, funders, etc. They all want to have their say – and rightly so – but it is still a delicate balance. This is another aspect of her creativity: her social skills and her inclusive attitude. It is all about engagement – and sometimes it helps to have a sense of humour. The inviting and highly interactive work Pat the Horse (2007) is in every respect representative of this side of her professionalism. The fat king on his suffering horse is an obvious symbol of power and repression, expected to be met with servility and obedience. To take the part of the beautiful horse was to take the part of the disempowered. To climb the three-storey scaffolding and pat the horse’s head was both to take a physical risk and to show solidarity. The new ­perspective on the grand square – and the world – became a bonus reward. In all her projects

7

with the artist Gunilla Bandolin has inspired Monika Gora to develop other, less artistic, but more social projects. From their first co-project, the giant marine installation marking the site of the bridge between Sweden and Denmark, X–X (1992), their cooperation has been truly inventive. They have crossed borders together and indeed challenged the tyranny of disciplines. They have never compromised aesthetics, but they have questioned preconceptions and challenged prejudices. And this is something that has sharpened the social skills of Monika ­Gora’s own work. She wants her work to be accessible, and she takes pride in the positive response of the users and the people who ­encounter the work on a daily basis.

Returning to the successful collaborative work

there is also a playfulness that characterizes Monika Gora’s practice. The Glass Bubble in Malmö (2006) is a greenhouse for human growth. Again she wanted the users to be in on the project before its completion, and she created a platform for involvement that was crucial for the success in the end. The people most frequently using this stimulating “incubator” are definitely grown-ups, indeed elderly, but they still grow in their minds. Again her work is about ­inclusion, simplicity, and playfulness, but the starting point was the opposite – an urge for complication. In her negotiations with Mick at Octatube, the Dutch constructor of the unique components of the Glass Bubble, she wanted to make sure that the firm was able to meet her requirements. When asking him “Have you done anything like this before?” and getting the reply “Well, similar, but not exactly the same”, she concluded, “So, how can we make it more difficult – make it a greater challenge?” You might say

Behind this urge to explore there is a curiosity about context and a fascination with complexity. Monika Gora explains it as a wish to ­examine and understand the whole as well as all the parts, to manage the whole operation from start to finish, to master the tools for independence and completion. Her level of ambition is high but so are her demands, both as regards her own contribution and what she has the right to expect from the professionals involved. Her attitude towards the process and the lifespan of her projects, however, seems to be quite relaxed. “Everything is temporary” is perhaps an unexpected statement from her as a construction-oriented architect. “Buildings come and go – like the leaves on a tree” is another. That all is mortal and perishable should not be taken in a biblical sense; it is more practical than that. It is a sound and enlightened attitude that squares with her anti-authoritarian view on both society and artistic practice. It is a sensible, down-to-earth perspective; it is common sense in the midst of dreams. To be honest, deep inside we know that all is impermanent – we have to live with that insight, but there is still no cause for panic. 8

9

10

11

– rich, lush, bewitching, difficult to overlook, maybe dangerous. You can get lost, even devoured. There are so many tempting tasks for your professional career, from small garden creation to big strategic planning, from building landscapes to theorizing about its foundations, from the arts to the sciences … you may be overwhelmed by all these steadily evolving, intertwining, liana-like paths and eventually make the wrong decision and end up in the maw of a brute real estate company or in the abysses of a nature preservation sect. That is probably why the discipline tries to domesticate this jungle into a cultivated field, nicely flowering, productive, understandable, controllable, and teachable, in short: ­secure. The drawback of this domestication, however, is the loss of all those small and great inventions for human life on an urbanizing planet, itself a jungle, that can emerge if one exploits the complexity of the intricate paths instead of banning them. For the sake of landscape architecture, some professionals have chosen to permanently transgress the boundaries of the secure and consider their discipline as a tempting jungle – Monika Gora is one such landscape architect.

Landscape architecture is a jungle

12

Fearless Lightness Lisa Diedrich

The unimaginativeness of the landscape architectural field has bored others, and earlier. In his foreword to Udo Weilacher’s book Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art, published exactly 15 years ago, landscape architecture historian John Dixon Hunt notices that “landscape architecture, spreading itself across a wonderfully wide range of human territories, seems doomed to lose its sense of coherence(s), of shared energies”. He detects one of the reasons for this loss in the profession’s total lack of interest in conceptual issues regardless whether emergent from theory or from the arts. Landscape architecture, complains Dixon Hunt, literally fears the arts as they rely on human ingenuity that threatens to “jeopardise the earth’s unique equilibria (or those that survive) for stewardship over which modern landscape architects take particular pride”. Therefore they feel more comfortable with the scientifically proven, unquestionable rules found in natural sciences. At the time of Dixon Hunt’s complaint, some landscape architectural pioneers looked for inspiration from land art, an artistic genre of the 1960’s and 70’s, familiar to them as practiced in the landscape. According to Dixon Hunt, the privilege of land art, as compared to the “essentially barren conceptual field of landscape architecture”, was “its sense of creative purpose, the conviction of its practitioners and critics alike that has a firm basis in ideas. Ideas of how to respond to land, ideas of art and design, together with no fear of conjoining them (…): the intricate melding of site, sight and insight”. Herself a pioneer, Monika Gora has freed her practice of landscape architecture from the earthiness of land art while continuing the work of sculpting the landscape as volume – bodily volumes or volumes of light, bodily experiences or volumes of thought. Her materials are lighter, sometimes rather more atmospheric than material, and so are her working methods. She involves all kinds of artistic explorations and expressions, including collaborative practices by inviting others to participate – be it humans, be it forces of nature – in a shared creative process. Monika Gora has also freed her practice of landscape architecture from the trust in any other normative bases

Ground modulation, playground, 1995.

13

than her own power of sensing, creating, and understanding. So ­doing, Gora escapes the still widely accepted landscape architectural restrictions of today, and even more so, as an artist she escapes landscape architecture as a whole. However, considering her oeuvre as landscape architecture after all holds all the advantages of including into the discipline a body of work and thought that exemplifies the values that the arts have to offer to it today. Gora’s concern about the fragility of life on this planet is the same as expressed by devoted nature apostles but her answer is not to believe in the truth of the earth, i.e. hands off, but to believe in the truth of ideas: hands on. has great potential to achieve the promising melding of site, sight and insight in order to build up a new equilibrium between humans and their environment. Landscape architects start their creative work on site and from site, and this is the key to understand one of landscape architecture’s main artistic concepts that is far too underrecognized:

Landscape architecture understood as a creative discipline

14

Landscape architects read a specific locale with their own sensitivity and sensibility (site), while imagining perspectives for its future (sight) and raising knowledge about it and its various contexts on all levels (insight). According to landscape architectural scholar Elizabeth Meyer, landscape architects don’t consider sites as “empty canvases but full of spaces, full of nature and history, whose latent forms and meanings can be made apparent and palpable through design”. She observes that landscape architects would never start to develop ideas for their sites without having experienced them themselves, with their own senses and thought. She argues that this site concern should be understood as raising doubt on the supposed contradiction in the seemingly opposing activities of a rational site analysis and a creative conceptual design, as landscape architects “tend to synthesize these intellectual movements into one creative act”. Acknowledging this, we have a great chance to revolt against the boringly secure field of landscape architecture and recognize the lush jungle of solutions to contemporary problems it can provide us with. In this book, Monika Gora takes us on her way and to her findings. She merges her sites, sights, and insights into a couple of liana-like stories. Starting each time from a main project in her career, she narrates how she stepped into it, what questions it brought about, how she reacted to them, what she made out of it and how this experience links with related projects and issues. She also offers us “sideways”, in the form of essays, which look into her practice from more or less distant positions, with one by the art historian Måns Holst-Ekström, one by her artistic co-creator Gunilla Bandolin, and one of her own in the role of a researcher. To date, Monika Gora’s practice goes on. This book will hopefully inspire others to take the jungle path of landscape architecture. Be fearless, dare to experience lightness!

Ground modulations, playground, 1995.

15

16

The Glass Bubble It was a difficult spot: dark, narrow, and windy. Is it even possible to create a garden here? I had long been fascinated by the greenhouse, both as an incubator of life and as a roof over ones head. The house of glass serves two different fundamental human needs. Within the haven of the transparent membranes we can look after and protect the living things we choose to have around us and cherish. But it is also an exquisitely sheltered spot: the safe home from which we can start to explore the world.

the Glass bubble, Malmö

The spherically shaped glasshouse is situated in the yard of a residential building for senior housing in front of Turning Torso. The barren vegetation outside the glasshouse stands in great contrast to the more luxuriant and flowering vegetation inside. (For project data see page 172.) shelter, light, volume, impossibility, viewpoint, sanctuary, survival

The Glass Bubble (2006) started with a meeting with the board of Söder­torpsgården, an organization that manages buildings providing flats for elderly people in Malmö. They took a vivid interest in their buildings, they improved and extended their premises. Christer, the project manager of the municipal housing corporation, was to oversee the erection of a new building at a prominent, central site by the sea. A decision had been taken about the contractor for the building, and the time had come for the grounds. The board appreciated my previous projects, and now they chose me as landscape architect. In the local plan for the city of Malmö, the site had been set aside for an exhibition hall. The housing fair five years previously had been a great success with exciting exhibitions and innovative architecture, but the building in question had never been erected. Now the site, on the outskirts of the new state-of-the-art housing estate, was empty. In the local plan the building opened up to the sea and to the prevalent wind direction much like the letter U. The shadow cast by the building would fall on the yard during the major part of the day. It was a difficult point of departure; the site would not allow a traditional garden. But the very difficulty of it was a challenge. Would it be possible to create a garden here – in this narrow, dark, and windy yard? 18

19

The Sheltered Tree, Iceland

As a symbol for our need to shield the things we love, the orange tree would stand on the barren grounds of Iceland. (For project data see page 173.) protection, preconditions, prospect, climate, extreme, persistence, threat

A garden at an impossible site was a challenge that had excited me once already. In the project The Sheltered Tree (1994) I wanted to plant trees in extremely exposed places and make them survive with the help of conservatories. I was fascinated with the connection: the conservatory serving as an incubator for the tree, the tree and the conservatory being an image of our need to look after living things we choose to have around us and cherish. In the project Sheltered Tree a small orange tree was to grow in a field of volcanic stones in Iceland. The work was to be financed by the biggest industry in Iceland, the aluminium smelting plant in Hafnarfjordur. But their managing director asked whether the construction was in any way connected with the environmental effects of the smelting plant. If I had answered, “Of course not, this is a garden,” the glassed-in orange tree would have been there today, under the care of the smelting plant. As it turned out I answered, “This is a work of art. It is in the nature of a work of art to be open to the interpretations of the onlookers,” and they chose to spend the money on a plantation with no conservatory.

20

More than ten years later I was again face to face with a site with a harsh climate, just as The Sheltered Tree site in Iceland. This time I had a commission. What I had to show was not much of a draft – a piece of clay which I placed in the model of the building together with a couple of quick, hand-drawn sketches. The glass structure was a free-standing, curved form, as big as possible. Its contours were as softly sweeping as those of the Crystal Palace in London in the middle of the 19th century. It was an orangery or a greenhouse in the proper sense of the word: simple, clear glass, perhaps some moisture on the glass from the plants and the soil. A protected garden in an impossible spot, planted on top of an underground garage. They chose the most extreme solution, the one whose size was the most provocative.

The project proceeded. I had a clear idea about The Glass Bubble but it was not easy to find a builder. Christer contacted Happolds in London. We went there – the members of the board, Christer and I – to discuss different construction strategies, and we took the opportunity to visit both old and new glass structures. The contract for the glass job was placed in the same way as my contract, only this time I was on the committee. We singled out the three most interesting firms. Christer, and I visited them. Octatube in the Netherlands, which is run by Mick Eekhout, inventor, constructor, and architect, was by far the best. Together we continued to develop the construction. At the second meeting in Delft Mick said, “There are three kinds of project: things we have done before and know we can handle; border cases – things we have not done before but which can perhaps be done; and, third, things we know we cannot build. Things go wrong only in one type of project-”   “Which one,” I asked.   “When you work with things you have done previously. You relax, thinking that you are able to do it, and suddenly you make a mistake.”   “OK,” I said. “What about The Glass Bubble? Have you done anything similar before?”   “Well, we have built similar structures, not exactly the same but similar ones.”   “So how can we make it more difficult? How can we change the construction to make it a greater challenge?” 21

22

Now all the participants, except for the Christer, the project manager, who had become a bit nervous from this new development, felt elated and alert and started to come up with ideas for simplifications and improvements. The horizontal framework was removed altogether, and all that remained was steel arches anchored in the ground and glass binding the arches together. The glass became supporting like an eggshell. No pains were spared during the planning and design work. Octatube built mock-ups, that is full-scale models, parts of the glasshouse where we compared thermopane against glass, crystal against glass, and tested how the steel structure looked and how the glass panes were secured. The models were erected in the big hall at Octatube. It all looked enormous indoors. Lena, one of the board members, exclaimed, “Wow! Is it going to be that big!” “No, this is just half the size,” said Mick. When the whole structure was assembled in an open space outside the workshop as a test it suddenly seemed quite small. Everything is relative. When the shape of the bubble was clearly indicated on its concrete foundation in the yard it looked big again. Was there really enough room for it here? The empty yard appeared small and bare. The tenants had already moved in. Then the structure was

erected, and suddenly everything fell into place. The Glass Bubble belonged here, like a piece of a magical jigsaw puzzle. Mick had worried about the wind. It is hard to foresee wind; you can surmise what will happen but if you want to be sure there is only one way. You build a model and blow on it and measure the wind force at different points. But there are many variables, for instance other high buildings in the vicinity, which can affect the wind. Wind models can be complicated, expensive and timeconsuming to build. We did not build a model. Naturally there would be more wind where the structure was narrowest, but how much more we did not know. We set back the doorways to have them out of the wind. The Glass Bubble proved to be perfect for this spot. In the inner courtyard there was hardly any wind at all, and it also became much brighter due to the reflected light. During the planning and design stage we saw to it that the construction was as light and transparent as possible. Inside The Glass Bubble you experience a sense of space – it actually feels bigger than the courtyard it sits in. The Glass Bubble is at its biggest and highest at the front of the site. Here the tenants can sit, sheltered from the wind, close to the adjacent promenade, and watch the sea, the weather, and life. 23

24

25

26

27

28

A roof over ones head. A safe spot where you can start exploring the world. It is interesting to ponder how sheltered you or I need to feel in order to feel at home in a certain spot. This makes me think of another project, The Garden Settlers (2000) in Falun five years earlier. In The Garden Settlers I wanted to give shape to the smallest possible sheltered place. The result was a bench with a roof, sheltered from the back and with a view in front. They were placed as strategic outposts, alluring goals to walk between. Clearly visible from the windows of an old people’s home, they represented a visualization of a walk and an exploration. They enticed the old people and the staff to go out. The enthusiasm and the spirit of exploration they awakened made the staff decide to create a flowery allotment garden outside the building. The roofed benches have now become a logotype for the geriatric care in the district.

the garden settlers, Falun

The seating construction is warm and cheerful, built to protect from sun, rain, and wind. The benches tell stories from long gone summer days, filled with joy and pleasure. (For project data see page 174.) outlook, security, solidarity, refuge, accessibility, lookout, social

Stensjö Terrace, Malmö

In a house where the elderly had difficulties getting down to the courtyard, the courtyard had to go up to the elderly. Economic restraints forced the project into innovative solutions to protect the users from wind and sun but also to give them a view and vegetation. (For project data see page 175.) adaptation, living room, flexibility, low cost, elevated, furniture

While planning the garden in The Glass Bubble we were busy with another garden, a garden belonging to a tower block where the two top floors were used for geriatric care: Stensjö Terrace (2006). The people living here were quite old and weak; they had difficulties moving and kept to their beds most of the time. The chance that they would get down to the ground floor was slim. The only possibility was to use the roof terrace of the building. What kind of shelter was needed here, six floors up? This was a place with lots of sun and wind and no soil for planting. The result was another innovation: a pavilion on the outermost corner of the terrace with the best view, overlooking the faraway sea, a bridge, and other buildings, with enormous poplars in the foreground. The glass is partially tinted as optimistic sunglasses, which is cheery on those days when the whole world is grey. There are sliding hatches which can be closed when needed to decrease the impact of the wind. Plants grow in rounded configurations on the concrete floor, about the right height if you sit in a wheelchair. 29

30

31

Travelling Kitchen Garden, göteborg

As a reflection on the notion of growing your own food in transit, a motorhome with an attached greenhouse was temporarily parked in the setting of an old manor. (For project data see page 176.) momentary, simplicity, future, mobile, cultivation, agriculture, drifting

The Glass Bubble has been given a lot of attention, and it has met with much appreciation. Couples have got married inside, and it has served as the stage for the shooting of a film. It has figured on magazine covers, prominent guests have visited it and people strolling past notice it and take pictures. The Glass Bubble has the potential of becoming a meeting place, a spot where the old people living here can meet others who are interested in gardens and architecture, just as in New York and parts of England where privately owned houses and gardens are open to visitors certain hours every week. There are many people who press their noses to the glass, wondering if they might be allowed to come in. As of yet they cannot. Personally I wish that my next winter garden could be open to the public and that many more people could experience it from the inside. 32

A couple of years later I designed a greenhouse which was made from non-rigid plastic and textile fabric. It was erected around the entrance to a motorhome and was my interpretation of a vegetable garden, a Travelling Kitchen Garden (2008). The motorhome was parked in the gardens of Gunnebo Manor in connection with a big exhibition. Here the motorhome got firmly rooted with its vegetables under the tent, ready to leave but hesitant to go.

33

34

Ein Volumen aus Licht It all started with thoughts about tents, dwellings for refugees, about the lights in the tents, about light as human presence and ended with an object containing the essence of the baroque and of summer, installed in the damp weather of late autumn. The large volume of light would preserve the heat and light of summer. It would bring back the Vienna of the baroque era, the waltzes, the festivities, the costumes, the dazzlingly white dancing Lipizzaner stallions, and the gingerbread work of the houses – in other words, splendour and luxurious abundance.

Ein Volumen Aus Licht, Vienna

A temporary installation, made up by a 30-meter-long and 8-meter-high luminous air-inflated balloon. A reproduction of the summer’s sensuality and luminous flux in the middle of the autumn darkness. Contribution to the exhibition “Der Aussen­ raum”. (For project data see page 177.) climate change, light, ephemerality, transience, fragility, vulnerability, contrast, sensuality, happening

36

Ein Volumen aus Licht (1995) was my contribution to the ambitious exhibition ‘Der Aussenraum’ in Vienna, Austria. As indicated by the name, the exhibition took place in the open air – in squares, streets, and parks. My contribution was placed in Schottentor, probably the most central spot in Vienna. It is neither a square nor a park but a traffic intersection on three levels, with a subterranean level reserved for the metro. This is a place where different kinds of traffic intersect and where you change means of conveyance and direction. On the ground level there is an oval roundabout dominated by cars and trams. Several main streets with very busy traffic converge here. In the middle of the roundabout there is a wide opening to the level underneath. Under this opening there is a lawn which has the same oval shape as the opening itself. The lawn forms the centre of the subterranean area. The trams somehow manage to get down here and circulate around the lawn, the rails framing the elevated surface. This – the lawn framed by tram rails – is where Ein Volumen aus Licht was to be placed during the exhibition period. I thought about Vienna, its location in the middle of Europe, and I thought about the various waves of migration that have flooded the city. I started to think about tents, dwellings for refugees, about the lights in the tents, about light as human presence. Immediately prior to the exhibition I had been working with other luminous objects, the first group of Jimmys. I had also been working with textile fabrics, thin fabrics hanging like laundry from wires over a large space and tulles hanging from big trees. From performance projects that I had previously participated in I also had experience using fabric for light projections.

I wanted to make the volume of light lighter, whiter, thinner, more luminous and as big as possible. I envisaged an object containing the essence of the baroque and of summer, in the damp weather of late autumn. The large volume of light would preserve the heat and light of summer. It would bring back the Vienna of the baroque era, the waltzes, the festivities, the costumes, the dazzlingly white dancing Lipizzaner stallions, and the gingerbread work of the houses – in other words splendour and luxurious abundance. I knew that the big volume of light had to be made of fabric, a thin white fabric that lets the light through. Probably the same material that is used for air balloons. I knew that bouyancy would be needed to keep it inflated and that I was going to need really powerful lighting. I also knew that Lars Bylund, my lighting expert, could arrange this. The project was accepted for the exhibition. The balloon was manufactured, fans, wires, and iron fittings were bought. We packed up the tools. Now it only remained to erect the balloon. It had to go up. The money provided for in the budget had gone into manufacturing the balloon. There was nothing left for the trip, but my friends came along anyway. The regular expedition set out for Vienna: Nils and Veronika Borg, Maria Hellström, Jimmy Söderling, and Lars Bylund. None of them got paid, and they had to pay for their own tickets and lodgings. I don’t understand why they did it, but I am grateful. Nils Borg said in a light tone: ”You should arrange this kind of journey and charge people for coming along.” I don’t know whether he was ironic or if he really meant it; I didn’t dare to ask. Without them I would never have managed to erect the balloon. Thinking back on the trip it was rather like a rainy vacation in a sodden tent. 37

38

It was much more difficult than we had thought to set up the balloon. The tent pegs were pulled up as if they were toothpicks. We had to make new, stronger ones. It rained all the time, and it was cold and sometimes windy. I think we worked for a week just setting it up. I still remember how it felt out there on the lawn under that big opening in the city centre of Vienna; it was as if we had gone through at least one month of hard labour in an extremely inhospitable climate. Now and then we warmed ourselves with hot beverages and Russian pasties which we bought from a small shop on the lower level close to where we were working. Day after day we struggled until we were cold as ice and soaking wet. Lars Bylund was the lighting expert and responsible for the lamps which were to light up the balloon. “I can tell you, they will shine brighter than any other lamps,” he said. The lamps arrived in three heavy cases from the USA. Lars had arranged for us to borrow them. He designed the circuits at a workshop nearby. The lamps that were to light up the balloon were so new that they were not even lamps but separate components that had to be connected. Lars is more of a theorist; he was not very keen on actually connecting them. He was probably aware that a faulty connection would cause them to break. Jimmy was more of a handyman so he took charge of fitting the lighting. The lamps were so powerful that you couldn’t come near them without wearing welder’s goggles. After work on the last day when we all were totally exhausted, Lars announced that he had booked a table in one of the finest restaurants in Vienna. We had an incredible meal which stirred us up from our primitive existence, turning us again into people of culture who enjoyed the sophistication of wines and food. So in the end we did it. The balloon sat there. Luminous, it rose above the traffic intersection, lighting up the lower level. It was magic, alluring, and elusive, we thought. So did many other people. Then we went home. Ein Volumen aus Licht remained for five whole weeks. 39

40

41

42

A Drop of Light, Stockholm

A 24-meter-long and 12-meter-high balloon, filled with artificial sunlight in the winter darkness outside the Parliament House. A contribution to European Capital of Culture 1998, the balloon was exhibited during the last two weeks of the year. In the first concept sketch visitors could go into the balloon through a gate. Although this proved too difficult to implement in the context of the exhibition, it became a reality in The Glass Bubble eight years later. (For project data see page 177.) climate change, light, ephemerality, transience, fragility, vulnerability, celebration, sensuality, happening

A Drop of Light, Helsingborg

During a light festival, the installation received a new location. Coloured light with slow change of colours mixed and floated into each other. (For project data see page 177.) light, ephemerality, fragility, celebration, happening, temporary change, transformation, sensuality

Three years later, in connection with the final week of Stockholm’s year as the European Capital of Culture, I created a similar installation, A Drop of Light (1998). I had refined my production technique; the balloon was tailor-made from a three-dimensional data model in accordance with my drafts. I didn’t have to set up the balloon myself. It was given a very prominent place outside the Parliament building in Stockholm, mainly because this was an open space that was large enough for erecting the installation. The balloon was knifed by somebody during the first night, but it was mended and remained there for the duration of the exhibition, one week in December 1998. Two years after that, the same balloon participated in the Light Festival in Helsingborg, and in 1999 I used it again as a train for a wedding dress, a Bridal Train. 43

44

Bridal Train, Malmö

A Drop of Light was turned into a wedding dress making a new record for the Guin­ ness Book of Records as the world’s longest bridal train. This time with no lights, just as a pure shape. (For project data see page 177.) ephemeral, fragile, celebration, happening

Ground modulation, disposal site, 2002.

There is a famous wood engraving that is often used to show how medieval man viewed the earth and cosmos. It was first published 1888 by Camille Flammarion in his book L’atmosphère: Météorologie populaire. For a long time it was believed to be an image dating from the Middle Ages but it later turned out that it had been produced in Flammarion’s own time. In spite of this it is still often mistaken for an authentic medieval image, showing the backwardness of the Dark Ages rather than being the highly creative piece of historical construction that it is. Art and architecture, as visual media, can be very convincing, a fact well known to iconoclasts in their vain struggles against images, products of imagination. ­Flammarion’s sug­­gestive image shows us a man who has reached the point where sky and earth touch. There is a solid half-sphere bubble, a dome dressed with moon, sun, and stars on the inside. The earth is an ­undulating landscape, with forests, farmlands, and cities. Kneeling, the man thrusts his head, shoulders and hands out through a gap between the protecting sky and the ground underneath him, into ­layers of unknown skies. It is an image of delusions but also of exploration, of an imagined sky but also of finding a way to get beyond it, finding new images. It is a picture of the supposedly impenetrable, of the suffocating inside and the exciting outside, simultaneously of the safety inside and the unknown outside. The dome is a powerful visual trope. The power of forms.

46

A Space to Explore, Places to Remember Måns Holst-Ekström

One glass bubble and other bubbles. In

Monika Gora’s oeuvre – be it landscape architecture, art projects or the design of objects – there is always an element of not only finding a solution to a specific spatial problem, but of exploring new possibilities, of challenging the given. The Glass Bubble in Malmö elegantly bridges the gaps between ­architecture, landscaping, and garden design, but it also brings an unexpected and explorative answer to a difficult challenge: how to make a windblown space by the sea livable twelve months of the year for the residents of a specific house and making a thought-provoking visual contribution to the surrounding urban fabric. The Glass Bubble services both residents – enveloping them – and passers-by. To them it may work like an evocative folly in a park, creating a visual node in a larger context. The context here is the sea, recalling nature, and the artifice of the city and the Öresund bridge. Inside Gora’s Glass Bubble the residents enjoy a pleasant protected landscape – just like the inhabitants of Flammarion’s flat earth – but they can also become explorers of the urban fabric outside and its many-layered possibil­ ities. An explorer herself, Gora invites us to join her. She creates the bubble, tests it limits and uses it as a point of departure for continued explorations. Her bubble is characterized by an organically shaped structure that is both light and lightness. A theme that she started working on in the form of temporary projects in the 1990’s, then with large, bulbous, but air-light structures lit from the inside, like Ein Vo­ lumen aus Licht in Vienna and A Drop of Light in Stockholm. Structures that seemed to have suddenly landed in central urban spaces, temporarily changing them. These works also encompass permanent installations like the many-coloured Jimmys or Durus and Mollis. They share morphological similarities but are also different. The latter are inviting human-scale permanent players among buildings, in parks. The former were large bodies – temporary invaders – that in some cases offered interiors filled with light. Bubble interiors that became alternative spaces, and then became a glass bubble ­opposing square surroundings. Organic shapes have always presented a challenge to the tectonic ideals of mainstream Western architecture and design, be it with oval rococo interiors and their flowing shapes, swelling Louis XV bureaus with legs giving in to the laws of gravity, or the windings of art nouveau metro entrances in Paris. 47

In The Bubble: Designing in a Complex World is a book where design critic John Thackara claims that the big challenge today is “to be both in the bubble and above it, at the same time – to be as sensitive to the big picture, and the ­destination we are headed for, as we are to the smallest details of the here and now”. The bubble that he talks of is a figure of speech, a state of mind, rather than an actual bubble, be it of glass and steel, or the light fabric used for hot air balloons. To be “in the bubble” is to find a certain undisturbed creative flow. Thackara is also a major ­advocate of less material consumption. Seen from that point of view a highly material landscape or art project may seem wasteful. But projects directed toward public use and enjoyment fulfil another of Thackara’s design ideals, they are there to be used rather than to be owned. And by being used by the public they become manifestations of community, serving the community. Thackara also means that it is necessary for a “culture of community and connectivity” to be “fun and challenging”. Fun and challenging is something of a theme through most of Monika Gora’s works, if they are not both at the same time they are either one or the other. The fun and the challenges in her projects are not exclusively reserved for the designer community, including herself, nor only to be enjoyed by the public, they are to an unusual extent a shared and many-layered experience. One example is Metamorphosis, placed in an urban park in the university city of Linköping. It is a photogenic aqueous landscape of shining steel, a bubbly sculpture of reflected light that is also intended to be a reminder of Linköping’s investment in the production of biogas. It is at the same time a beloved climbing frame. Reflecting on sustainability and fun.

In 2010 the entrance portal to the new emergency ward at the Malmö Hospital was completed with the permanent installation La Familia, a group of strange and colourful shapes, related to the earlier Jimmys, but protruding from both ground and ceiling. Apart from reminding us of how much we need each other in times of crisis, it adds absurd humour and something dreamlike to a place of both pain and relief. In his The Poetics of Space – a book treating the value of our lived experiences of architecture – French philosopher Gaston Bachelard says he “shall prove that ­imagination augments the values of reality”. Bachelard talks of remembrance and imagination in relationship to that which has already been built, but interpreted in his spirit Monika Gora’s imaginative works can also be seen as supporting such an augmented value; in La Familia by introducing something unexpected yet kind, something that lifts this space out of everyday anonymity into becoming a place both to be experienced in the here and now and remembered. ­Monika Gora has developed a pratice that creates semi-abstract and openended preconditions for heightened experiences of the present. In doing that she also creates places to remember.

Strange protuberances.

Ground modulation, disposal site, 2002.

49

50

Jimmys Wasn’t something missing, something that children can feel for and long for? Something that greets you during dark mornings in winter and autumn, something to say byebye to in the afternoon when you go home? An imaginary friend, a friend to identify with and cuddle. Soft, rounded forms with a warm glow. The first figures were called Jimmys – as if belonging to the species Jimmy or as if they are Jimmy’s, belonging to Jimmy. Today the Jimmys are represented in twenty places around the world. They look like rocks, close to the ground, at the same time you can visualize them as different kinds of animals, a flock of individuals with different characteristics.

Jimmys

This is the first of group of plastic sculptures that glow at night. Jimmys are made in editions and always as a group of at least four; each of them is different and can be associated with animals. The material used is polyester reinforced with fibreglass. (For project data see page 178.) play, stone formation, animals, body, activity, gentleness, kindness

My light sculptures, the Jimmys (1995), were inspired by the children at Frosta school in Hörby, a small town in the south of Sweden, surrounded by woods and exciting nature spots. When the school commissioned me to turn the schoolyard into a nicer place, their then outdoor environment consisted of a vast asphalt-covered area. My suggestion was to build up nine steep hills which would rise out of this asphalt field like the wooded drystone walls in the surrounding fields. The hills were put together from the asphalt that had been ripped up, plus rocks and soil that was brought in. We planted young trees together with perennial plants. Narrow steps were constructed leading across each hill, and low seats made from logs were placed on top of each one. Every hill represented a separate grade. But was this enough? Wasn’t something missing, something that children can feel for and long for? Something that greets you during dark mornings in winter and autumn, something to say bye-bye to in the afternoon when you go home? An imaginary friend, a friend to identify with and cuddle. I wanted to create soft, rounded forms with a warm glow. 52

53

54

55

I had seen such rounded forms once, only they were at least ten times as big and much more numerous. Among them I had felt like a tiny ant. I saw them in the distance first, walking as an even smaller ant on the biggest monolith in the world. At that time it was called Ayers Rock; now it has again got its old aboriginal name, Uluru. Sitting 300 metres up in the air, on the edge of the relatively flat top of Ayers Rock, I watched the sunrise. Everything threw gigantic shadows, and thanks to the shadows I discovered the Olgas in the distance. A short drive and soon we walked among huge orange rocks, polished and rounded as if by the sea. Not many tourists find their way here. The Olgas, or Kata Tjuta as they are now called, are not as spectacular, not as huge, not just one monolith but many rocks – but they are absolutely fantastic. Yes, it was little baby Olgas that I wished to give the children in Hörby. I made models, showed photos, explained. None of the grown-ups working in the school liked the idea. Nobody asked the children. The staff knew what the children needed. The hills were there, weren’t they? Rising from the smooth black surface they were shaped like mountains, but it wasn’t merely the feeling of mountains that I wanted to capture. I couldn’t let go of the thought of the glowing rounded forms and I kept working on them without a formal commission. The first group was produced in 1995. The figures were called Jimmys – as if belonging to the species Jimmy or as if they are Jimmy’s, belonging to Jimmy. The first ones were placed in Pildammsparken, a park in Malmö, and today the Jimmys are represented in twenty places around the world. They look like rocks, close to the ground, at the same time as you can visualize them as different kinds of animals, as a flock of four individuals with different characteristics. 56

57

58

59

I used the same material for other sculptures. The Bubble (2003) was conceived as a solitary shape, a reinterpretation in a more durable material of the fragile textile balloon from the installation Ein Volumen aus Licht (1995). I wanted to achieve a larger shining volume, a larger and more abstract space than that of the Jimmys. The Bubble is big and slippery; it is difficult to climb without help. It’s a sun, a bread roll rising in the oven, a space continually challenging you to conquer it. In the project Common Ground (2003) the objects are made to interact with the land form, plants, and a big new public building. Objects reminiscent of cerise couches or hearts and black diabase float straight through the glazed hall and down onto a softly landscaped slope covered with meadow flowers. The kind of plastics I use is the same material that plastic boats are made from, fibreglass-reinforced polyester. It is strong and durable, and it can be repaired. But even if it is the best kind of plastic, it’s just plastic. When the trees have grown high the diabase sculpture will still be there. Perhaps the house will be there as well.

60

the bubble, sundsvall and malmö

This single plastic shape is related to the more perishable luminous balloon installations made of fabric. This shape is almost impossible to climb without help and a real challenge for kids. (For project data see page 179.) light, softness, transformation, growth, sensuality, body, movement, landmark

Common Ground, Umeå

Seven plastic sculptures and one made of black granite stone run through a new building. They follow the ground modulation and articulate the continuity of the ground as a unifying bottom line for plants, houses, and people. (For project data see page 180.) transience and permanence, articulation, transformation, flow, contrast, sensuality, play, body, activity, gentleness, affinity

61

62

63

Odenskog, Östersund

Although 3.5 metres high, these 6 sculptures are quite tiny compared with the 15,000 m2 big traffic junction. Still their presence is very strong and creates a unique entrance to the city. Due to difficulties with the soil – a former wetland containing mostly peat – other solutions would have been very expensive. (For project data see page 181.) vehicles, movement, landmark, light, softness, transformation, sensuality, gesture, identity, assembly, impact

The light globes at the road junction Odenskog (2007) are constructed on the same scale as the vehicles entering the roundabout. They are the same height as the lorries on the motorway, passing through the big traffic junction. The light globes are like self-willed vehicles or rotating bodies that move in accordance with their own rules in their own orbits outside of the regular lanes. They surprise you, and they dominate the roundabout even if there are only six of them, covering less than half a hundredth part of its surface. The presence of the light globes is intensified and reinforced by your own speed as you travel through the roundabout.

64

65

66

67

Durus and Mollis (2008) are two individuals, an interacting couple. In my first rough draft I wanted to render a couple of figure skaters. One of them is leaning forwards, the other backwards – at the same time as both of them are reaching upwards. But the interpretation is left open; it could simply be one more introverted figure and another who is more of an extrovert, or one who is happy and another who is sore. They may be people or perhaps big seals. What is certain, though, is that something happens between the two individuals, a kind of interaction or communication. Durus and Mollis turned out dark green, as dark as possible, almost black. Yet they are still luminous at night. The colour scheme is that of traditional bronze sculpture – a dark, almost black bronze sculpture in the daytime and a shimmering green light at night, as if from oxidized copper.

68

Durus and Mollis, Växjö

A plastic sculpture couple that interacts with the surrounding old lime trees, each other and passersby. (For project data see page 182.) association to tree trunks, animals, body, movement, gentleness, landmark

69

The site is important. Durus and Mollis are placed at the beginning of an imposing lime tree avenue near the central lake in the city of Växjö. I chose a spot in the avenue where there was an advertising pillar, partly to get rid of the advertisements, partly so as not to damage the roots of the trees unnecessarily by digging new holes for the foundations and the electrical wiring. The old lime trees and the gravel under them create a wonderful atmosphere which makes you think of much bigger cities and lakes. The lime trees are old and gnarled. They bear witness to a bygone cultural epoch and a cultural heritage that this small city shares with Europe. Durus and Mollis interact not only with one another but also with the gnarled stems of the lime trees, and sometimes they even disappear behind them.

70

71

La Familia, Malmö

A garden where no vegetation was possible. Five sculptural elements multiplied to in total 27 occupy and inhabit the entrance to the emergency reception at the hospital area. (For project data see page 183.) organic, growth, colony, garden, body, landmark, light, transformation, sensuality, play, formation, assembly, articulation, flow, inhabitation, affinity

La Familia (2010) is my latest project involving dyed fibreglass-reinforced polyester – a family consisting of twenty-four members populate the entrance of the new emergency ward of the hospital of Malmö. And there’s a garden made entirely of plastic because of the fear of unwanted live organisms that might penetrate into the buildings if real plants were allowed to creep on the walls – a plastic garden that demonstrates our solidary with all living things.

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

Metamorphosis The undulating grounds outside an oncological clinic were the origin of the billowing landscape of Metamorphosis. The silver skin of these small hills reflects every bit of light around it. They even capture the darkness. Black and elusive in the night and dazzlingly white in full daylight, they capture the plants, the sky, the clouds, the visitors, and the life of the city. It both exists and does not exist at one and the same time; it hides in the reflections. It eludes you as fleetingly as the clouds’ transitory accumulations of water vapour.

Oncological Clinic, Lund

A garden at an oncological clinic that differs from the rest of the hospital area due to its lush vegetation. (For project data see page 184.) nature experience, growth, water, animals, life

The origin of this shiny, silvery installation goes back many years. At the very beginning of my career I was engaged in the rebuilding of the Oncological Clinic (1991) at Lund University Hospital. Traditional hospital premises resemble parks with scattered buildings surrounded by large trees, with pleasant little gardens in connection with the buildings. Old and timehonoured ideals lie behind this design concept; fresh air, sunshine, trees, and greenery are beneficial for the patients’ health and recuperation. This seems sensible; it has been statistically proven and nowadays also demonstrated in recent research reports. Nevertheless, these environments are in a state of constant change 80

towards abridgement and rationalization. In the end the budget, or the site, will not allow any room for trees. Nor are plants allowed close to the walls for hygienic reasons. Continuous economizing results in an impoverished outdoor environment deprived of plants and other “unnecessary” things that stimulate the senses. Everything should be as practical and as easily maintainable as possible. The oncological clinic went against this trend. The staff and those in charge of the rebuilding project wanted a humane and pleasant environment with a garden. The patients who were coming here for examinations and

81

radiation therapy were ill, and everything that made it easier for them was welcomed. The answer was one garden inside the house and one outside, both of them luxuriant and bubbling over with life. Two ponds were installed in the outside garden, and the flat site was landscaped to create an undulating effect. The undulating land form serves as a framework for the garden and makes it more exciting, but it also creates room for more plants. Just as wrinkled skin has a larger surface than smooth skin, hilly areas are larger than flat ones. You really make the principle work for you if you make the hills as high and steep as possible. At the same time, if the hills are too steep precipitation will erode the soil and the vegetation. The undulating grounds outside the oncology clinic are the origin of the billowing silver landscape of Metamorphosis. 82

I drew a section through the clinic and the garden, and I named the project “The House in the Woods – The Woods in the House”. Everybody loved the drawing of the vegetation, perhaps also the idea. They liked the picture of the luxuriant plants and pinned it up on their notice boards. Still, the idea of having natural sceneries both outside and inside was close to being discarded. Rocks can remind people of tombstones and death. Ferns can remind people of churchyards. You can be allergic to Indiarubber trees. Wouldn’t plastic be better here? No plastic plants were acquired, however. Moreover, you only get an allergic reaction to Indiarubber trees if you rub against the bark for several hours a day, which neither the patients nor the staff should be doing. Everybody appreciated the lush gardens once they were in place. I was asked to continue working with the same ideas for the outdoor environment of the next major extension of the hospital. However, most of the area was eaten up by parking spaces for cars even though a multistorey car park had just been erected. With only small plots of land you cannot create hills.

83

84

Parapluie, Helsingborg

An abstraction of a house, a man-made shelter, a roof over one’s head. The French word parapluie means protection from the rain. Once inside the sculpture, as if under an umbrella, your head stays dry while your feet all the time run the risk of getting wet. The grass is irrigated by a telescopic water nozzle that regularly pops up from the mound. The sprinkling water is spread in a wide circle around the sculpture. Now and then, randomly and surprisingly, a steamy mist leaks from the pillars. You experience water rising as gas and falling down as liquid at the same time. At a distance the sculpture mound seems to be wandering about on its thin bronze pillar legs. It is part of the park but liber­ ated from and raised up above it, like a small island, a small nature reserve. (For project data see page 185.) landmark, nature preserve, play, shelter, folly, water

The oncology clinic is a traditional landscaping project; constructed from traditional garden materials with a view to creating a whole where every part is right. Metamorphosis, Parapluie and the Silver Tree are objects adapted to a special site; they interact with the site and all have an effect on it. Parapluie (2001) is reminiscent of the oncology clinic. The ground, or rather the little of it that is to be found on its roof, is billowy. The vegetation is luxuriant, but the soil is completely out of reach, raised as it is on lanky pillars, looking like legs. The grassy hill on top is sprinkled with a little water now and then, and then water vapour hisses out from some of the legs. The water humidifies the air, making the grass and anything else that can take root up there thrive. It is like a nature reserve in miniature, beyond cultivation. Standing under this nature reserve is like standing under an umbrella: the upper part of your body stays dry while your feet run the risk of getting wet. It should also be mentioned that Parapluie was designed to be placed outside a water science centre. 85

Silver Tree, Luleå

A tree made of shining stainless steel and equipped with a heating coils to comfort you during the cold winter days. (For project data see page 186.) landmark, metaphor, reflexion

Silver Tree (2007) is placed outside the cultural centre in Luleå in the north of Sweden, a big, beautiful house partly built of wood in the middle of an area with smelters for iron from the big mine in Kiruna. A heavily trafficked street runs past the building. The pavement is narrow; the traffic dominates the street. The Silver Tree is like a mutant in stainless steel which has adapted to the local materials and the narrow space in the busy street. It rests on its root end, ready to leave if necessary. It shines as brightly as the chromium on the cars passing by. It’s easy to clean, and falling leaves are no problem. It is an image of a tree, a monument dedicated to the tree and the memory of a tree and a homage to the cultural centre. Reflecting the surrounding area and its light, it is both elusive and very much present. 86

87

88

89

90

91

Metamorphosis, Linköping

A sculpture that is a place and a small hilly shining landscape. It has become a major landmark of the city Linköping and is situated just in front of their travel centre. (For project data see page 187.) change, transformation, nodulation, fluidity, liquid shape, reflexion, landmark, object

Metamorphosis (2005) causes the same reflections to arise as the Silver Tree. Both sculptures are impossible to light, but they do not need extra lighting because they reflect every bit of light around it. They even capture the darkness. Black and elusive in the night and dazzlingly white in full daylight, they reflect the clouds and the life of the city.

92

93

94

Metamorphosis came first of the two. I chose the shiny material precisely because I wanted to capture a sense of the mutable, flowing state between other more solid states – it represents transformation. Metamorphosis is a sculpture that is linked to the major investment the city of Linköping has made in biogas for the city’s collective traffic. The gas is produced from agricultural waste which is converted through fermentation. The sculpture is an interpretation of the biological processes but also of mental change, new lines of thought and new associations. The surface reflects the surroundings, the plants, the sky, the clouds, the sun, and the visitors. It both exists and does not exist at one and the same time; it hides in the reflections. It eludes you as fleetingly as the clouds’ transitory accumulations of water vapour.

95

96

The Library Plaza There is a dynamic overtime in the significance of a specific urban space; is this space important enough for us to want to keep it as a facade at this point in time? Is it important that we emphasize its specific character and see to it that it is preserved? At the same time, all urban spaces play a role for our experience of the city. Are they a hodge-podge, cooked up by many different cooks who all have their special interests, or are they like the beautiful urban spaces that Camillo Sitte wrote about – public spaces designed with care and pleasant to be in?

The Library Plaza, Landskrona

Transformation of a public space by redesigning a large parking lot. The green colour occurs just for a moment when the lamps start to shine. (For project data see page 188.) public, urban, horizontal-vertical, flexible, pleasant, unique

Landskrona is a town in the south of Sweden. Once upon a time, when Landskrona got its name, it was the crown (“krona”) of the land with its strategically important location on the Sound. A major part of the national budget went into its large-scale fortifications. The construction of fortifications came to an end, but to this day the distinct ramparts and moats remain. City planning continued being an important concern in Landskrona – the urban spaces, the perspectives, the fronts of the houses, and the vistas were cherished. The town has a solid core of exciting public spaces, and it boasts original houses designed by well-known architects. It has been called “a beautiful and remarkable town”. Fredrik Sundbärg, its first city architect, saw it as his calling to raise people’s consciousness about a new school of urban planning according to artistic principles where the urban spaces should be experienced as an harmonious whole. Inspired by Camillo Sitte’s works and thoughts about city planning, he aimed for public spaces designed with care and pleasant to be in. 98

In 1905 Fredrik Sundbärg draughted the plans for the fire station. In 1988 it was extensively refurbished and transformed into a new library. The open space outside the building is visible from the surrounding streets; it is in the middle of the sight lines. When I started to make sketches for this area it was split up into different surfaces. There were planting with bushes, asphalt-covered surfaces for a car park and pavements with concrete slabs. The trees bore witness to the fact that it had been like this for a long time. There were other houses there as well, apart from the fire station. The space was now split up, the plaza had shrunk and become cluttered. The competition I participated in was really only about a sculpture that was to be placed by the entrance to the library, but I felt it was necessary to consider the entire scene.

I cleared the plaza of everything except the trees, turning it into a large gravel area where you could walk in any direction you wanted. Some new trees were added to remove the patterns made up by the former arrangement. New objects were introduced, like islands, solitary entities, which would not be in the way but which made up a structure and gave the place character. At the entrance to the library I placed a fountain with placidly flowing water and a water surface just above the ground. The broad concrete rim is softly rounded; it is excellent to sit on and even to lie on. The Library Plaza (1999) is framed by a pruned beech hedge, which turns pleasantly like a ribbon that you draw through the air with your hand – a dance with a slight delay of the soft folds of the ribbon as it floats through the air. 99

100

Three seven-meter-high cones make up the sculpture itself. They were constructed from perforated rolled sheets of stainless steel at the city shipyard. At the bottom of every cone there is a source of light. The light is reflected at the top of the cone. The narrow slits in the sheets form screens that overlap each other, making up new patterns resembling the kind of moiré effect you get when looking through the overlapping nylon surfaces of sheer pantyhose. The light lends them a fleeting, magic quality. The cones become ethereal, light, and unreal. In the daytime when the sun shines on the metal surfaces they seem very solid, almost obtrusively massive. The project had a low budget, but the clients were wonderful. They all felt that even if there were several buildings around the plaza it should be possible to create a common urban space. 101

Homo Ludens, Karlstad

Transformation of a public space through the change of a facade. (For project data see page 189.)

The adornment of the sports centre of Tingvalla was not only about a public space on the ground but about two facades of the building itself, which is a large hall for ball games and rock climbing. The building is highly visible from the adjacent streets and roads where a lot of traffic passes through. The problem here was not to clear the facades; the surfaces were as simple as could be. Even the colour was neutral – a light grey. The sports centre was anonymous, and it did everything not to be seen, dominate or call attention to itself. Precisely this upset people, because it was so discreet. They felt it was boring and ugly. The commission was to adorn it in order to make it more interesting, to give it meaning.

The adornment was given the name Homo Ludens (2009) – the human being at play – a name signifying play, playfulness, and representing the activities inside the hall. Four spheres are mounted on two sides of the building, one on one wall, three on the other. When you pass by the building going towards the group of sculptures the constellation changes; the design becomes more dynamic as you view it from different angles. The spheres radiate lightness and movement, making you think of the playful force of the game and of play as such. The spheres can be viewed as normal, bouncing balls as well as circling planets, suns that lighten up the dark. Although they are anchored to the building they are in fact free from it. They can be viewed as an image of the idea of motion but also as individuals in interaction, as agents rather than objects.

The sports centre is located by the city boundary. What became obvious through the commission was that these traffic routes are important public places. The citizens really care about the entrance to the city; it, too, contributes to the identity of the city. For my part I liked it that the building is so monolithic and that the colour is so soft. It was a great background to work against. It was a wonder that this facade had not already been sold for advertising.

There is a dynamics overtime in the signification of a specific urban space; is this space important enough for us to want to keep it as a facade at this point in time? Is it important that we emphasize its specific character and see to it that it is preserved? At the same time, all urban spaces play a role for our experience of the city. Are they a hodge-podge, cooked up by many different cooks who all have their special interests, or are they like the beautiful urban spaces that Camillo Sitte writes about?

public, urban, horizontal-vertical

102

103

104

105

DN PLAZA, STOCKHOLM

The entrance to the biggest newspaper in Sweden was moved from the front of the building to the back. The former back stage became a front stage. The cracked boulders can be interpreted as secrets revealed and represent the importance of journalistic work. The project was a collaboration with Gunilla Bandolin and Richard Nonas. (For project data see page 190.)

REPRESENTATION, SUSTAINABLE, UNIQUE, PUBLIC, TOLERANT, PLEASANT, FLEXIBLE, HORIZONTAL

Three years earlier the DN, the biggest daily newspaper in Sweden, went through a reorganization process. The printing plant was moved from the main building, and the entrance was moved to the back where the loading bay was. There were air intakes and outlets, loading platforms, a driveway to the underground garage, and a chaotic jumble of surfaces and materials. There were three of us, Gunilla Bandolin, Richard Nonas, and myself, who designed the DN Plaza (1996). Finally we managed to do the next to impossible – to clean up the space and create a no-nonsense, lightly arched, paved surface, on which a row of cloven rocks were placed. The arrangement symbolizes the ability and calling of journalism to point to the truth and bring hidden and unknown facts to light. Again, the clients’ positive attitude was a prerequisite of the completion of the project. 106

107

108

Pat the Horse The citizens of Malmö were taken by surprise when their familiar environment was suddenly made totally different. These were temporary changes, but different from traditional annual changes like the return of Christmas displays. These surreal, crazy pranks challenged the possible and said “come and dance with me”, “come out and play”. The memories of these experiences are superimposed on the images of the locations as they usually appear; they give them a new history and hold a promise of undreamt of possibilities.

Summer-Winter, Malmö

Ten big cubes of ice on a pedestrian street melting during two hot summer days. (For project data see page 191.) climate change, happening, play, interaction

The Rain Fountain, Malmö

A high fountain, free flowing over a big city space, simulating rain. (For project data see page 192.) climate change, happening, surprise, interaction

Pat the Horse, Rain Fountain and Summer-Winter are three installations created for public spaces in the city centre of Malmö. Timewise they are far apart; nineteen years have passed between the creation of the first installation and the latest one. But locationwise they are quite near each other; only a few minutes’ walk across the cite centre separates them. Summer-Winter was conceived in 1988, as a commission from the city of Malmö for the 10th anniversary of the pedestrian precinct, which consists of two streets, one big one intersecting with a smaller one. I suggested that ten blocks of ice, as large as possible, should be placed at the intersection in the middle of summer. I had seen it before – snow and ice high up in the Alps and massive, glittering glacier walls in New Zealand. The joining of two opposites, two different seasons, is dazzling and unreal. Could this vision be transferred to Malmö? Ice in the middle of summer in a city that normally does not have snow even in winter? The idea was simple. The blocks of ice were made and placed in a formation where they overlapped each other, making up something that was shaped like a small glacier. To produce the ice blocks we used simple wooden moulds which were filled with crushed ice. They were frozen to 30 degrees centigrade below zero, and more cold water was added little by little. The ice blocks were made as big as possible, their size only limited by problems of handling and transportation. 110

The ice blocks were delivered to the pedestrian precinct early one morning. I felt tense; they had been waiting in the freezing plant for several weeks. The summer had been unusually cold; it was only now, in August, that the weather was getting warmer, and this cold celebration gave the citizens of Malmö quite a surprise. The blocks of ice remained over the weekend. They melted in places, irregularly, in glittering formations looking like rocks by the sea. They were more beautiful than I had expected. The water between the ice fragments melted faster, exposing the crushed ice. This gave the blocks a special look, as if they were made from piled-up pendants from chandeliers. It was wonderful to watch grown-ups behave like kids; they touched the ice eagerly, they walked among the ice blocks. Nobody asked what the big idea was or how much it had cost. The Rain Fountain was created in 1996 in connection with an exhibition in the shop windows and in the public spaces of the city. Again I was thinking in terms of climate change. The Rain Fountain claimed kinship with other magnificent examples of water architecture: from a mast, seven metres high, water spouted in every direction across a big open space. The location was a central yet out-of-the-way demolition site which had been asphalted and was now used as a parking lot. It seemed too much to ask for that the owners of the parking lot would let us use it for The Rain Fountain. I suspected that they would not like the idea. But Patrik Quist, a

marketing expert, did. He helped me persuade the parking company; they became convinced that The Rain Fountain was exactly what they needed in their parking lot. He saw to it that we could use the water from a firehydrant, and as much water as we wanted. It turned out that too little water was used in the city centre of Malmö; people were too careful. A higher rate of flow would be good for the water pipework. The water we use will be recycled anyway; rainwater also ends up in the street gullies, I thought. At last The Rain Fountain was in place. It was on continuously, day and night. I thought that this was just as well; it was better not to surprise anybody with a shower. You knew it was raining when you parked your car here. A couple of days passed. The summer heat stayed on; the high pressure lingered. A fine water vapour drifted in over the nearby square with its many outdoor

restaurants, and people thought it was great. They spontaneously cooled down in the parking lot; the birds bathed in the puddles. Everybody seemed to love The Rain Fountain – everybody except the car owners. Those who had parked in the rain claimed that the cars had got limescale spots. It is possible that they were right. The fountain had a decalcification apparatus, but Malmö’s water is very calciferous, and it could be that there was some limescale left which stuck to the car paint as the water evaporated in the hot sunlight. I thought that this was the end of the project. Then something extraordinary happened. Patrik made the parking company realize that this was their chance to demonstrate that they also had other facilities – a first-class car wash where all spots disappear, even limescale spots. They offered to clean any car that had got spots from The Rain Fountain. The installation was allowed to remain for the duration of the exhibition period – two whole weeks. 111

112

113

Pat the Horse, Malmö

A staircase leading up to a big and prominent bronze statue in the city’s most important square. (For project data see page 193.) happening, exploration, challenge, involvement, movement

Patrik would help me with several other projects, for instance with the latest installation, Pat the Horse (2007).This was an installation with next to no financing and with possible security risks. The background was an exhibition which was to be mounted in Stortorget in Malmö, a very large square with a big statue. The statue represents Karl X Gustav, the king who won Scania back from the Danes. The thick king sits on a beautiful horse, and he turns his back on Denmark. The monument is almost three stories high, and it dominates the square. Whatever you do on the ground next to it will be overshadowed by King Karl. It seemed self-evident that I had to work with the existing monument. The king does not look very pleasant, but the horse is incredibly beautiful with his billowing mane and tail. You cannot but like the horse and feel pity for him. It’s a shame that the horse has to carry such an overweight rider and that is has been used as a symbol of power and as a tool in warfare. I wanted to underscore the beauty of this animal, build a staircase leading up to it so that people could look at it at close quarters and pat it on the nose. It wanted to give it a new signification. 114

The result was one staircase going up and one going down and a passage in between. Everything was constructed from scaffolding with a great deal of precision by a company that sponsored the project. Petting the horse was a pleasurable and good-humoured installation. It was loved by all; even people who were afraid of heights climbed up. From the elevated position you also got a whole new perspective on the square – as the horse sees it. His nose became quite shiny from all the pats. Many people took photos of each other close to the horse’s head, and they sent text messages to their friends who then also came. The exhibition had to be prolonged by one week. So what was it that happened in these three installations? What did they have in common? The citizens of Malmö were taken by surprise when their familiar environment suddenly was totally different. To be sure, these were temporary changes but completely different from traditional annual changes like the return of Christmas displays. These surreal, crazy pranks challenged the possible and said “come and dance with me”, “come out and play”. See for yourself what is happening here. The three installations remain as pictures and as memories from these events. The memories of these experiences are superimposed on the images of the locations as they usually appear; they give them a new history and hold a promise of undreamt of possibilities.

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

and at the same time her partner in various projects. There are others who have this relation to Monika, but I am probably one of the earliest. We met at the beginning of the 1990’s. I was a promising young artist at the time with an interest in landscaping, and Monika was a landscape architect with an interest in art and a couple of conspicuous projects behind her. One plus one made more than two. I am Monika’s friend

I know who has turned her own wedding into a work of art. The wedding took place in a circular field used for events and picnics in Pildammsparken, the biggest park in Malmö. The site was chosen for its spatial and aesthetic qualities. These were combined with the remains of an art project from 1998, A Drop of Light, which had been turned into the wedding dress. Eventually the bridal gown ended up in Guinness Book of Records as having the longest bridal train in the world – festivities, a wedding, performance, and a world record at one and the same time. Monika is the only person

between Malmö’s Gallery Night 2002 and Gallery Night 2003 she exhibited her own mother. Monika’s mother, a Polish artist, was lonely and in need of friends and something to do. By buying a studio for her so that she could paint and exhibit her works Monika killed at least two birds with one stone. The visitors in the studio became her potential friends, and Monika got material for her relational artwork. The value of the studio, which was sold after some time, had increased during the time it was used by Monika’s mother.

For the duration of one year

122

­Shared Ideas Gunilla Bandolin

the endless discussions in Monika’s and Jimmy’s kitchen between Jimmy and their friend Maria about what art is and what an artist is allowed to do were processed in a recording studio and played back as a soundwork, the Art Dialogue, in an oblong ­gallery. Two loudspeakers were placed as far from each other as possible. In one end of the room you cold only hear the arguments of one of the discussants and vice versa. It was only in the middle of the room that you got to hear the entire discussion. Endless discussions were refined and turned into art. This is an example of sensible economy. Real life was turned into art and real problems were solved through artistic means.

In the nineties

Left: Part of first sketch, X–X, 1991. Above: Situation sketch, X–X, 1992.

123

she meets and situations she comes across, and she is always reflecting over what she has seen. As an empiricist she is an omnivore: everything about a human being can be interesting: behaviour, language, similarities to animals, body, and background. As a good planner and a good landscape architect she has the ability to take an overall view, to pick out what is essential about a person or a situation. Perhaps she could be called a researcher – in that case an action researcher, doing something about a problem while at the same time studying it. I believe that Monika has inherited her interest in people from her father who died long before Monika and I became friends. Monika’s mother was a painter, it’s true, but it seems that the qualities Monika shows as an artist seem to come from her father: an interest in people, courage, and a determination to disregard the limitations we take for granted. Her father was a survival artist who fought in several armies in the Second World War. According to his own accounts he was close to death on a number of occasions. From him Monika learnt how to jump off a moving train without getting killed. You do it at a curve, when the train slows down a bit, and then the g-force takes care of the rest.

Monika is always studying people

in 1992 Monika and I squeezed through the ­undergrowth round a lake in Potsdam. There we were, trying to sound the depth in the lake with the help of a Tippex bottle and a piece of string. It was in Potsdam that Monika’s father deserted from the ­Russian army during the chaotic end of the war in 1945. This is where he filled a stolen sailboat with museum pieces and sailed north, heading for the Baltic. He only got a couple of kilometres before the waterway proved to be blocked by blown-up bridges. He scuppered the boat and returned home to Poland and his “old” family. Some fifteen to thirty years later he told the story to his “new” family where Monika was the eldest daughter. During this time when the small family tried to take root in Sweden, their new country, after having fled from the communists in the 1970’s, Potsdam and East Germany were as distant as the moon. When the Iron Curtain fell all of this changed. But Monika’s father was no longer around; she only had the memories from the tales he told during her childhood. These memories accompanied us to Potsdam in the early 1990’s. Eight, nine years later she made several serious efforts to dive in search of the boat and the treasure. Teams of professional divers were engaged. New eyewitnesses supplied new clues. Monika and the team did find boats, but not the right boat. The search for her father’s treasure resulted in a documentary and an art project.

On an autumn day

124

and her ability to see beyond the usual limits is charming but also sometimes alarming. She dares to challenge lines of demarcation; to wear them down or transgress them is also one of her most important artistic methods. If it hadn’t been for this ability, which I learned from Monika, several of our common projects, for example X–X (1992), would have come to nothing. Our common projects have often developed out of chats we have had when we were doing something else together. The chats could be seen as a kind of sketches. We have been “sketching” when driving, when cooking, or when going to exhibitions. Monika’s readiness for action

and pushed our thoughts to their limits.We have read texts and articles and understood them in our own way, in an unscientific and perhaps naive way. We have distorted, parodied and made fun of things. We have been guilty of wild speculations, one-eyed verdicts and unfair observations. We have laughed a lot, and out of this carnivalesque atmosphere the seed of an artwork has sometimes sprouted. What is characteristic is that it is a pleasurable process and that we keep going until both of us feel that the idea is viable. “What if we would …” has been our formula; it’s a little like the magic words “Once upon a time there was …” An artistic fantasy that you conceive together with somebody else is also more likely to be realized than one that you come up with on your own. The fantasies you keep to yourself may regress and ­never come to fruition. A work you share with somebody else is somewhat like an agreement, a process that has already started. There is something utopian in the creation of all art. This becomes even ­clearer in a cooperation project because the project has to be verbalized all the time. Then this description must be altered, improved on, polished. And out of this articulation the utopia germinates; for us this is a precondition for the creation of art. We have studied people and phenomena

Drawing from diary, Copenhagen 1988.

125

126

X–X The danger of cooperation, however pleasant and exciting, is that you suddenly find yourself somewhere where you would never have been otherwise: in a stinking five-metre-deep hole in a mountain of 25-year-old kitchen refuse, or at a seashore of dazzlingly white with lime shards transferring abstract issues and debates to the real world, or in an ascetical apartment, almost cleansed of all of our belongings, all the things that we have desired and created and that weigh us down.

Garbage Museum, Stockholm

A travelling exhibition about garbage and ecology showing our connection to the garbage we leave behind as traces of our history and development. (For project data see page 194.) artistic collaboration, social concern, revealing, exhibition

The danger of cooperation, however pleasant and exciting, is that you suddenly find yourself somewhere where you would never have been otherwise – in this case on the edge of a stinking five-metre-deep hole in a mountain of 25-year-old kitchen refuse at a dump outside Stockholm. I stood there thinking, “This is the stupidest project I have ever been involved in.” But there was no way of shirking the responsibility; we had come up with the idea, been commissioned to do the job – and now it had to be done. If I had been on my own I would never have climbed down into the refuse. I would have fled, said I was ill, fainted. I would have done anything to get out of this. Above all I would have delegated the task. There must be somebody who’s an expert on this kind of thing, climbing down and carrying out an archaeological dig among refuse. Gunilla Bandolin was more keen on authenticity than I was; of course we should go down ourselves and search for archaeological finds. Everything should be filmed and photographed. The team from Swedish Travelling Exhibitions were ready with their cameras. 128

It was even more disgusting than I had thought. Later I learnt that it was not without risk either; methane can displace available oxygen. People can faint from lack of oxygen. The smell was appalling. It sort of stuck in one’s nose. No matter how much we washed ourselves we couldn’t get rid of it. It diminished by and by, and it disappeared after a couple of days. On the days it lingered I could hardly handle my own refuse. My own tied-up plastic bags with new and fresh refuse looked almost identical to the relatively well-preserved bags down in the excavation. We were unable to be amongst the refuse for more than twenty minutes at a time; we had to return several times. We excavated everyday objects: a toothbrush, a Barbie doll, a margarine container, a Nivea jar, nylon stockings. There were also scraps of food and diapers. It really blew your mind – diapers with pooh preserved for such a long time. The children were now in their twenties. With the help of discarded daily papers we were able to date the refuse.

129

The exhibition we were working with was about environmental issues, about how to protect the environment. At the time, in the mid-nineties, sorting and recycling waste had only just begun. There was a strong faith that this would solve the world’s refuse problems. We were more sceptical, and we wanted to show what a close relationship we have with our belongings, how dependent we are on them. We did this by excavating these old objects, by bringing them up into the light again, giving them a history and exhibiting them. We showed that they are part of our civilization, part of the development, and thereby linked to everything else we invent and create. Everything will end up as refuse and we won’t stop manufacturing new things. In this we were assisted by the team from Swedish Travelling Exhibitions and as many co-authors/co-artists as there were objects. Every object got its own artist who gave it a personal interpretation by means of narrations, images, films, quotations, and associations, whether true or invented. The exhibition was titled The Museum of Garbage (1995–1997). It toured Sweden in a trailer for a year, causing a lot of commotion. 130

GARBAGE MANIFESTO Garbage is good Garbage is necessary Garbage is culture and history Garbage measures the passage of time Garbage is a proof of human presence on Earth Garbage is our only connection to nature Garbage protects us from the dream of perfection Garbage gives us a past Garbage is our original sin Absence of garbage is death Do not hide garbage Do not avoid garbage Do not deny the importance of garbage Do not use garbage to offend others, or to demonstrate your moral superiority Use garbage to understand your life

131

132

133

X–X, Limhamn Sweden and Tårnby Denmark

A landscape installation, a translation from map to land, a marking out of two places: the abutments of the planned and debated bridge between Denmark and Sweden. A project carried out together with Gunilla Bandolin. (For project data see page 195.) artistic collaboration, social concern, revealing, ephemeral

The Garbage Museum was preceded by X–X (1992). The location was much more agreeable than the dump. There was a delightful smell of sea in the summer air. We were checking the mounting of the installation by the seashore, which was dazzlingly white with lime shards. Some men from the National Administration of Shipping and Navigation were busy placing the buoys on the water. The sailors saw this as a nice break from their usual work, and they were in high spirits. They were stationed on an icebreaker which didn’t have a lot to do now in the middle of summer. For us this was the much longed-for tail end of an incredibly drawn-out project, our first really big one. Entirely without financing we had struggled to gain a hearing for an idea that we thought was brilliant. We wanted to visualize the extension of the projected bridge between Sweden and Denmark. To build or not to build a bridge – the debate was heated. The issue was politically charged. We did not take up a stand; instead we wanted to focus on the locations of the projected bridge abut­ ments and the 17-kilometre-long span of space and water between the two coastlines. 134

Our aim was to concretize, to transfer the abstract issues and debates to the real world. All we wanted to achieve was a staking-out saying “These are the places that are being discussed”. Our intentions were misinterpreted; everybody who was in favour of the bridge thought that the installation was directed against the bridge, and everybody who was against it thought that the installation was in favour of the bridge. Just as we were really close to giving up we got sponsoring from both sides. The installation took the form of two big Xs in the water, one on the Swedish side and one on the Danish side. But everybody continued to interpret the Xs; this time, however, in favour of their own views. The buoys were knifed by the naysayers after those in favour put up a big billboard with information and propaganda nearby. They remained under water for a whole summer.

135

136

137

138

139

After the Garbage Museum we were unable to forget the hole in the mountain of refuse. The memory was so strong that we wanted to render it undiluted, old kitchen refuse exhibited in a nice square in the city, available for all to experience. This was impossible for sanitary reasons; no city wanted to stage such a happening. We transposed the idea into a more acceptable one. Instead of stinking kitchen refuse we thought about all the stuff that is stored in attics and basements; all the things you collect, all the things that weigh you down, things that are not yet refuse but that will be thrown away in the end. We constructed such a half-way storage for an exhibition that took place in the city centre of Falkenberg, in a small house in the big square which we packed full of stuff. The crumpled up objects could be seen through the windows and door openings of the house. The exhibition, Kitchen Midden of Our Time (1997), made a great stir. It was burnt down before the opening date. The building was not completed until it was burnt down. The sculpture was never to be re-erected since the fire department and the ones responsible for the exhibition put up conditions for the new building that we could not accept.

140

Kitchen Midden of Our Time, Falkenberg

A small house filled with ordinary items, a normal content of attic or cellar storage. All those things you might want to throw away but for some reason still keep. We transferred those things to this house erected on the main city square and exposed them through door and window openings. (For project data see page 196.) artistic collaboration, installation, exhibition, happening, contemporary

141

We Started with Throwing Everything Out, Lund

A full panorama view in an apartment styled for sale reconstructed in a cylindrical room. Outside the room are all those items that might have been in the apartment previously and have now been thrown out. (For project data see page 197.) artistic collaboration, installation, exhibition, contemporary

Ten years later we started to work on the same theme again for an exhibition at a museum. In the installation titled We Started with Throwing Everything Out (1990) we recreated a flat after home-styling. The flat was mounted as a panorama image in a cylindrical room. Stepping into the round room was like entering the beautiful, ascetically clean, almost empty flat. Outside we had collected all the stuff that had perhaps been removed from the flat. To get all these things we visited the Garbage Museum dump again. By now the recyclable waste was being sorted, and yet there was ten times as much refuse at the dump as before.

142

143

144

145

146

The Garden of Knowledge The cupped palm of a bus stop connects the traveller to the world, but it can also be a node in a network of handicraft and of intellectual and professional journeys. My own small North Bothnian bus shelter connects me to wooden labyrinths of knowledge and memory, and to watery fantasies of paradise. The nest of the human body, and the exploration of its various body-sized nests, has always fascinated me. That is why I continue to imagine castles in the air.

Bus Shelter, Härnösand

As a cupped palm, the Bus Shelter turns in the direction from where the bus comes. A prototype for the countryside in northern Sweden. The Bus Shelter follows local building traditions of timber houses painted with calcimine colour of iron oxide. (For project data see page 198.) concern, caring, new interpretation of building traditions

Commissions do not have to concern major projects to be interesting. It is for instance easy to relate to a small scale that corresponds with the size of the human body. Dealing with a small scale you can study particulars but also principles that could be applied to other, larger contexts. The Bus Shelter (1997), a prototype for northern Sweden, was a small-scale job originating in a cooperation project between the bus company of the county of Norrbotten and the National Road Administration with the object of catering for people using public transport.

we started with throwing everything our

The spherically shaped glasshouse is situated at a yard to a residential building for senior housing in front of Turning Torso. shelter, light, volume, impossibility

148

I started to consider the nature of bus stops, especially in the countryside, in thinly populated areas. I thought about the Bus Shelter as corresponding to the central stations and bus depots in big cities. This is where the journey to the rest of the world begins; this is the connection to an elsewhere. One of the preconditions that I had to work with was that the Bus Shelter should be built with logs. The reasons for this were that this is a very durable material, and that they wanted to support local handicraft and represent traditional building methods. I was pleased when I realized the potential of the material and of the local craftsmen. The method they used for joining the logs resulted in fairly flexible angles, not necessarily ninety-degree ones.

149

The Garden of Knowledge, Malmö

A succession and labyrinth of outdoor rooms with different and surprising content representing the world. Mixture of different elements, handicraft and knowledge. (For project data see page 199.) playing, exploration, investigation, learning, exploration, surprise, craft

I wanted to work with more projects involving logs. I got a chance three years later – a garden for Bo01, the housing fair in the old Malmö harbour. I was asked to create The Garden of Knowledge (2001) in an area cover­ ing 3 500 square metres between two large buildings. I built models of lots of rooms, which I spread over the surface – rooms with angular cells and walls at various angles, rooms like boxes with various contents to discover and categorize. The outside walls formed a labyrinth in the space in between. After a while I limited the number of rooms – how many rooms does it take to make a labyrinth? It turned out that five big ones and three small ones sufficed. The contents of each of the rooms told a different story, which could be combined with the other stories into different wholes. The Garden of Knowledge was about imbibing knowledge, discovering and conquering, about appropriating, interpreting, and reinterpreting. The rooms contained everyday objects. There was one room with different 150

kinds of wood, one with different kinds of stones, one with animals. One room represented the power to grow; it was full of fast-growing things, lush and luxuriant, and finally there was one room for that which has been abandoned and forgotten, where even memories were erased. One room had a bit of sky and a functioning bathroom close to the ground and a tap with water but no basin. An engine, making a lot of noise, puffing and blowing and spouting water, occupied another. In one room, the smallest of them all, a person was locked up. This person was not real, but the sound track was very realistic – an actor who struggles to get out, to free himself from his prison. He returned in the garden of forgetfulness, his voice now calm and relaxed. In a well he could be heard talking to himself, incoherently like a slightly demented person in a monologue with himself and his fragmentary memories.

151

Castles in the Air, Malmö

View points at various heights overlooking The Garden of Knowledge. Like a mixture between a pylon and a bird’s nest, a mixture of nature and culture. (For project data see page 202.) challenge, exploration, movement, nature-culture, folly, peak experience

Along the border of The Garden of Knowledge, there were look-out towers from which you could get an overview of the garden, if you dared to climb up. I called them Castles in the Air (2001). They were a cross between a bird’s nest and a power-line pylon. It was pure luxury to sit up there cosily and comfortably sheltered in a stable structure covered with soft straw. To find oneself high up in a bird’s nest gave a sense of superfluous abundance, comparable to life in a palace, superfluous but at the same time necessary. The lowest tower was only one and a half metres high, the highest eleven.

152

153

154

155

Paradise, Malmö

An exhibition garden for a Nordic exhibition at an old industry wharf. An interpretation of paradise as a visualization of different elements and the contrast and affinity between living and dead matter. Water, piles of coal, plants, and animals. (For project data see page 200.) exhibition garden, complexity-simplicity, happening, event, change, movement, living and dead material

Housing fairs have been important for the town building development of Malmö, and so was NordForm90, a Nordic exhibition that took place in the summer of 1990. My contribution, Paradise, was a complex, surrealist exhibition garden. It was one of my early projects and contemporary to the oncology clinic and Summer-Winter installation. Paradise was about opposites – life and death, organic and mineral, black and white. A stream of water flowed straight through the garden. It started at an artificial waterfall, which issued from an arch, and ended in another waterfall pouring into the dock. Everything close to the watercourse was green and flourishing. A grass-covered, singing island rose above the surface of the water; a giant newt had crawled out of the stream. In the middle of the watercourse, the water was placid. The islands were white cliffs made of concrete with no plants. A wooden deck surrounded the whole structure, as if by a swimming pool or the deck of a ship. On the deck there were thin, pliant masts with vertical white and feathery streamers made of rustling spinnaker material engaged in a spiralling, out-turned motion which made you think of sails or wisps of cloud. The garden was marked off from its surroundings by means of shadow. The shadow was represented by a mound of black coal on the quay edge, a painted, dark form on the adjacent facade and a closely meshed five-metre-high black net which was put up on the two other sides – the garden as a drawing in black and white. 156

Coal played an important role in the garden. The coal in the coal heap contained the same chemical element, carbon, as living organisms, plants and human beings. The coal heap was like a store that was available for plants and people, a deposit or remains from the past. My plans also included a black hole – a sunken area in the dock that received the water and where the water finally disappeared. A tin basin with pumps was constructed; it was hoisted down and moored. It floated there for a couple of minutes, just outside Paradise. Then a speedboat with powerful engines whizzed past, creating a big wave. The black hole sunk. I believe it is still there, at the bottom of the dock.

157

158

Two Piers So much depends on chance, but also on hard work; on somebody, or some people, working very hard for something, wanting something special in spite of opposition against it. Two Piers – the treasure is where the two piers meet, is appreciated and valuable for the region, for excursions, as a site for events and festivals or individual experiences. Stepping out on the piers is almost like flying. You just walk straight out without any effort and you take off. Once you let go of the ground, the surrounding landscape becomes much more tangible and the experience much stronger.

Two Piers, Sidensjö

The piers work as two large spirit levels to saturate the slope’s gradient, the tool for reading the magnificent landscape. Walking out on the piers makes you rise from the ground. (For project data see page 203.) geological time, revealing, experimental movement, vertigo, horizontal- vertical, beauty

The Two Piers (2005) may seem totally meaningless where they stand apparently reaching for the hillside. The body of water by which they are placed is much lower down. And they would not have been any use as landing stages in a lake either. With railings all around they are rather like balconies, balconies sticking out from a hillside, or big spirit levels measuring the steepness of the slope. And why are there two of them? The history of the piers begins in Jonas Nätterlund’s last will and testament, which was written in 1961. Here he clearly expressed his will that the assets left at his death were to form Sigrid, Johan, and Jonas Nätterlund’s Memorial Fund. The proceeds of the fund were to be used for buying artworks and sculptures for the adornment of public premises and places in his native district, the rural district of Nätra-Sidensjö. Johan and Sigrid were his deceased parents; he was their only child. Jonas himself died in 1995. Nätra-Sidensjö does not exist any more; this geographical area now belongs to the municipality of Örnsköldsvik. Jonas never founded a family and he led a frugal life. Neither his work colleagues nor his acquaintances were aware or understood that he had a sizable fortune, which he had made thanks to clever investments in shares. He lived 160

nearly all his life in Stockholm, leaving his birthplace at the age of twenty and visiting it only once, two years before he wrote the will, for his mother’s funeral. And yet he gave all his money to adorning this remote area where he was born, money for art and sculptures for a sparsely populated region that does not believe it needs adornments – the scenery is beautiful enough. The foundation invited me to make an adornment for a site overlooking the lake called Drömmesjön. I interpreted the name as a lake for dreaming, with dreams or a dreamt lake. The landscape where the lake is situated is dreamlike and really exceptionally beautiful. The lake flows into the sea at Höga kusten (The High Coast), an area designated in the World Heritage List. The foundation staff chose the site by the lake because the National Road Administration was to build a lay-by for the road passing by the lake. The reason why they invited me was because I work with art that is linked to landscape.

161

I spent a long time making sketches. The ideas were slow in coming in spite of the rich sources of inspiration: the life story of Jonas Nätterlund and the exciting geography and cultural history of the area. It was as if Drömmesjön was enchanted. It did not want any adornment. I was hoping to be able to anchor my design somehow in the lay-by. This is where people would stop and rest. Perhaps a combination was possible, a lay-by with artistic value. But cooperating with the National Road Administration was not an option. Their construction work was quick; the lay-by was finished. It was a “free-hand” job, as the contractor who was responsible for the project told me – reluctantly, not being used to having to explain why – when I asked for the plans. He said that they had done their best, that this was a first-class lay-by – top standard, with a flush toilet. Here people can take a break, use the toilet, sit down at the tables and eat, look at the view. All the wounds caused by the construction work would soon be healed by nature; that was nothing to worry about. All right, this is one way of looking at design. I didn’t feel like working on the lay-by where everything had already been given a form – albeit without plans and without aesthetic considerations. I returned to considering the slope towards the lake again. I experimented with pavilions, little houses made of wire mesh which would diffuse the image of the lake in order for it to come into sharp focus again once you left the pavilion. I placed the pavilion on the slope, below and away from the lay-by. It was given a footbridge to the entrance. And suddenly I found myself in a state of flow; it was obvious that no pavilion was needed. 162

The footbridge sufficed as a springboard into the air above the landscape and into the landscape. With two footbridges another dimension was added in that they started to relate to one another – different heights at the end, different lengths, somewhat different angles. My suggestion was accepted. We signed the contract. Some of the people living in the near-by village of Näs started to struggle against the project; this was not really art. I could understand their point of view. They had longed for a statue, perhaps one of a farmer ploughing his land with a horse, some cultural historical document showing that this was an area that had been cultivated for a long time. They wanted a monument, preferably in bronze. But the Two Piers – how can they be called art? What are they doing here? That a place can be a work of art was an inconceivable and obviously crazy idea. I made an addition to the title: Two Piers – the treasure is where the two piers meet. And so the two piers could suddenly be seen as representing something. What they represented was a matter of interpretation. The treasure could literally be buried where the extensions of the lines of the two piers intersect, or the treasure could be this place by the two piers as there’s obviously two of them. Or it could be the meeting between the beholder and this place that is valuable or else that there’s something valuable in the meeting between two persons, or …

So much depends on chance, but also on hard work, on somebody, or some people, working very hard for something, wanting something special in spite of opposition and scepticism. For a while, I felt like giving it all up. I could have said: “Sorry, I don’t do figurative bronze sculptures.” I could have left with my fee for the plans. I wouldn’t have had to take on the financial risk for the construction work as the price of stainless steel, which the jetties were mainly made of, kept rising. But then I thought that it is more exciting to complete a project than to give it up and that Jonas Nätterlund had saved money all his life for this project. The piers were constructed, and the place is appreciated and valuable for the region, for excursions, as a site for events and festivals or individual experiences. Stepping out on the piers is almost like flying. You just walk straight out without any effort and you take off. Once you let go of the ground, the surrounding landscape becomes much more tangible and the experience much stronger. 163

164

165

senior lecturer and researcher in environmental psychology, invited me to participate in a joint project. The plan was to examine the environment outside various types of old people’s homes, to find out how the insides of the buildings correspond with the exteriors. Or how they do not correspond – something that became more and more obvious the more places we examined. Still, we managed to find some good models for old people’s homes. I was the one who did the reconnaissance work, I charted and documented the findings. I was fascinated by all the life stories I encountered in the various places. The persons I interviewed had led rich and full lives, they had lived in other homes, homes of their own. I took notes, drew their portraits and documented their housing conditions. I was only 35 years old myself, and old age seemed far away. Through working on the book I gradually realized that old age is a reality that can take very different shapes. In spite of it all, it is a reality where your liberty and your possibilities are limited by physical impediments and the frailty of the body. Maria Nordström ,

at the end of a newscast – an exhilarating news item about an 81-year-old lady who was a parachute jumper. I was fascinated – this was as different as could be from life in an old people’s home. I called on Elsa who was living in an apartment of her own in one of the suburbs of Stockholm. This is what I wrote after our meeting: “When Elsa was seventy-nine her husband who was eight years older died. He had been ill for a long time.

One night I happened to discover Elsa

166

Elsa or What Is an Experience? Monika Gora

Elsa had nursed him. They had had many talks about life and death during his last years. She was convinced that it was completely natural to die, as natural as being born. It is two years since he died, and Elsa thinks that she can feel him by her side all the time, even if he is gone. She got rid of all their furniture two days after the funeral. She sold some things and gave away others until everything was gone. Then she left Sollefteå and went to Stockholm to live with her daughter, she was full of zest for life and eager to learn more about the world.

Left: Drawing from diary, Lublin 1986. Above: Research on old people’s homes, illustration, 1995.

‘Life is meant to be full of joy,’ says Elsa. ‘I live in the present and try to do something interesting every day. I meet many new people.’ Elsa tells me that she was not the least bit afraid – what was there to be afraid of? She was full of trust in Johan who was in charge of the tandem jump. Elsa was harnessed to him, a bit like a baby that you carry on your stomach. A couple of months later they did another jump together.” Elsa’s son Per-Olov told me that she loves beautiful things. When she visited him in Karlstad she spent a lot of time in his allotment. She wasn’t exactly busy gardening – she sat looking at the things of beauty, the flowers, and the colourful parachutes against the blue sky. Elsa told her son that this is life. Two days later she was herself up there, hanging from a parachute, enjoying the magnificent view. A photo of her parachute jump became the cover picture of the book. We had some difficulties in implementing the idea – those who had commissioned the book had imagined a picture of some elderly

167

Above: Drawing from diary, Lublin 1986. Right: Research on old people’s homes, illustration, 1995.

people having coffee in peace and quiet in a pleasant sunny garden outside an old people’s home. I wanted Elsa’s exploit to serve as a challenge to others, to be something for them to emulate, a model for them not to take everything for granted and above all to remain open to new experiences. The book was aimed at those who design the outdoor environment for old people, both students and already active landscape architects. In portraying Elsa and the others I wanted to make the point that we are all different, but at the same time we share the need for meaning, pleasure, joy, and challenges. In our heart of hearts we all wish to discover what life can offer in a playful, subjective and personal way and for as long as we live. If you see the universe as food (as some Indian tribes did) this means that we process the world through our bodies – whether through the digestive system or through emotions, attitudes and experiences. At the same time, we in ourselves and through our actions provide nourishment for somebody else. Our environment leaves traces in us and vice versa. To see the whole world as food is an ­approach that leaves no room for fear. Everything can be used and digested, turned into some kind of nourishment.

All the same, accidental and momentary occurrences can stay in your memory for a long time. The temporary overlaps the less temporary, or that which we often think is there for ever, lasting and permanent. At the same time everything is in actual fact transitory; there are only different degrees of transitoriness. Landscape architecture is in this sense both more temporary than building architecture and art, and less so. Less permanent in that it works with constant change, more permanent because landscapes – on a larger scale – remain as such even if they change. Buildings and objects come and disappear, like the leaves on the trees. Like experiences, places are always temporary.

My urge to explore is rooted in a curiosity about everything around me and a fascination with complexity; the urge to understand and discover connections which may vary in size from “life” down to a specific, really small place. It is simply a wish to explore and understand both the whole and the parts making up the whole. In my projects I want to create places that leave space for different interpretations and for further investigation. In creating these places my rationale and driving force is the same as that of the user: my own need to explore and experience. An experience is of course always individual and subjective, but the need for experiences is universal.

169

Project Data

The Glass Bubble Type of project: residential garden with an orangery Location: Scaniaplatsen 2, Western Harbour, Malmö Material: glass, steel, rust shale stone, plants, light Ground area in total: 1040 m2 Dimensions of the Glass Bubble: ground area 120 m2, volume 890 m3, height 9.5 m and length 22 m Construction: 2006 Budget: € 700 000 (only the Glass Bubble) Commissioned by: Södertorpsgården Project management: Stadsfastigheter, Malmö My team: Jens Linnet, Mårten Setterblad Horticultural consultant: Magnus Svensson, SLU Alnarp Light consultant: Lars Bylund Construction and engineering: Octacube International B.V. 172

The Sheltered Tree Type of project: idea for a public sculpture Location: Iceland Material: aluminium, glass, orange tree, automatic heating and humidity control system Construction: not realized Exhibited: 1994 Exhibition: Art in Landscape, Växjö Konsthall, Oskarshamn and Stockholm Commissioned by: private project 173

The Garden Settlers Type of project: site-specific sculpture Location: Herrhagsgården, Herrhagsvägen, Falun Material: thin wooden slats, aluminium Construction: 2000 Budget: € 50 000 Commissioned by: Municipality of Falun My team: Sara Schlytter Contractor and engineering: NOLA industrier 174

Stensjö Terrace Type of project: roof terrace for disabled elderly and courtyard for an apartment building with mixed social accommodation Location: Stensjögatan 64–66, Malmö Material: glass, steel, wood, planting pots of glassfibrereinforced concrete, plants Site area in total: 5313 m2 Terrace area: 160 m2, 30 m2 sedum roof Construction: 2006 Budget terrace: € 120 000 (total € 420 000) Budget garden: € 300 000 Commissioned by: Stadsfastigheter, Malmö My team: Jens Linnet, Sara Schlytter, Mårten Setterblad Planting: Kommunteknik Malmö Contractor: NIMAB entreprenad AB Engineering: SEWS arkitekter AB (in coordination with the main building) 175

Travelling Kitchen Garden Type of project: exhibition garden Location: Gunnebo Manor, Göteborg Material: awning with non-rigid plastic and textile fabric, vegetables, motorhome Exhibited: summer of 2008 Budget: € 10 000 Commissioned by: Gunnebo Slott & Trädgårdar AB My team: Fredrik Karlsson Planting: Gunnebo Manor Contractor: Forsbergs Fritidscenter, KAMA Fritid

176

Bridal Train Type of project: A Drop of Light recycles as a wedding dress Location: Pildammsparken, Malmö Realization: 1999

Ein Volumen aus Licht Type of project: temporary installation Location: Schottentor, Vienna, Austria Material: sulphur microwave lamps, fabric, fans, air Length: 30 m Width: 10 m Height: 8 m Illumination: 15 000 cd/m2 Exhibited: 1/10–12/11/1995 Exhibition: Der Aussenraum Budget: € 20 000 Commissioned by: Urban Planning Office, Vienna My team: Veronika Borg Light consultant: Lars Bylund Sponsor: Fusion Lighting, Inc

A Drop of Light Type of project: temporary installation Location: The House of Parliament, Stockholm Material: metal halogen lamp, fabric, air Length: 24 m Width: 14 m Height: 11.5 m Exhibited: December 1998 Budget: € 30 000 Commissioned by: Stockholm European Capital of Culture Modelling and construction: Claes Lundstrom, Gransegel Light Consultant: Lars Bylund 177

Jimmys Type of project: sculpture group in limited edition Location: >20 places over the world Material: 4–5 mm thick polyester (reinforced with fibreglass), LED or fluorescent lamp Colour: range between the spectrums of yellow to red. The colours get very bright when the sculptures are illuminated since the colour pigment is embedded in the transparent plastic material and not on the surface. Length: 1.5–1.8 m Height: 0.7–1.1 m Number of sculptures: 4 First group: 1995

178

The Bubble Type of project: sculpture in limited edition Location: School of Ljustadalen, Sundsvall and Folkets Park, Malmö Material: polyester (reinforced with fibreglass), fluorescent lamp Colour: light blue Length: 2.2 m Height: 1.4 m Number of sculptures: 1 First sculpture: 2003 179

Common Ground Type of project: site-specific sculpture constellation combined with planting and landform at a hospital ward Location: The University Hospital, Umeå Material: polyester (reinforced with fibreglass), diabase, indigenous common trees and a meadow Colour of sculpture: magenta with different saturations Ground area in total: 4746 m2 Number of sculptures: 7 of polyester, 1 of diabase Construction: 2003 Budget: € 100 000 Commissioned by: Västerbotten County Council My team: Caroline Dieker, Sara Schlytter

180

Odenskog Type of project: site-specific sculpture constellation and landscaping at road junction Location: Odenskog road junction, road E14, Östersund Material: polyester (reinforced with fibreglass), fluorescent lamp, Amelanchier spicata, Colour: blue Ground area in total: 15 400 m2 Diameter of roundabout: 140 m Height of sculpture: 3.6 m Width of sculpture: 3.4 m Number of sculptures in total: 6 Construction: 2007 Budget: € 450 000 Commissioned by: The Swedish Road Administration Engineering: Octatube International B.V. My team: Steven Fahtz, Sara Schlytter, Mårten Setterblad 181

Durus and Mollis Type of project: site-specific sculpture Location: Lake of Växjö, Växjö Material: polyester (reinforced with fibreglass), LED lamp Colour: dark green Length: 1.4–1.7 m Height: 2–2.2 m Number of sculptures: 2 Construction: 2008 Budget: € 40 000 Commissioned by: Växjö Municipality My team: Fredrik Karlsson, Måns Holst-Ekström 182

La Familia Type of project: site-specific sculpture constellation at hospital emergency entrance Location: UMAS emergency exit, Malmö Material: polyester (reinforced with fibreglass), LED lamp Colour: variations from blue to green Length: 0.4–0.9 m Height: 0.8–1.2 m Number of different sculptures: 5 (in total 27) Construction: 2010 Budget: € 120 000 Commissioned by: Region Skåne My team: Karin Westermark 183

Oncological Clinic Type of project: external and internal garden Location: Oncological Clinic, Lund’s Hospital, Lund Area of external garden: 5400 m2 Area of internal garden: 275 m2 Motto: “The house in the forest and the forest inside the house.” Construction: 1991 Commissioned by: Region Skåne My team: Erik Käll Planting consultant: Kerstin Johansson

184

Parapluie Type of project: site-specific sculpture Location: Sundspärlan, Folkets Park, Helsingborg Material: bronze, vegetation, LED light, water Area: 9 m2 Height: 4 m Realization: 2001 Budget: € 70 000 Stolen: 2011 Commissioned by: Folkets Hus och Parker Contractor: Skånska Klockgjuteriet ab 185

Silver Tree Type of project: sculpture for public space Location: Kulturens hus, Skeppsbrogatan, Luleå Material: polished stainless steel Height: 3.4 m Weight: 700 kg Realization: 2007 Budget: € 70 000 Commissioned by: Swedish State Art Council, Luleå municipality Contractor and engineering: Broby Granit ab My team: Fredrik Karlsson 186

Metamorphosis Type of project: sculpture for public space Location: Järnvägsparken, Linköping Material: polished stainless steel Area: ca. 36 m2 Height: 0–2 m Construction: 2005 Budget: € 100 000 Commissioned by: Linköping municipality Contractor and engineering: Skånska Klockgjuteriet ab My team: Steven Fahtz, Sara Schlytter, Mårten Setterblad

Metamorfos: dimensions

height 2 m

6× 6 m

187

The Library Plaza Type of project: public space in front of a new library with site-specific sculptural elements Location: Regeringsgatan/Borgmästargatan, Landskrona Material: beech hedge, gravel, stone, metal cones, stainless steel, light, water Area: 3600 m2 Height of cones: 7 m Realization: 1999 Budget: € 150 000 Commissioned by: Municipality of Landskrona My team: Veronika Borg Light consultant: Lars Bylund Award: Town architecture prize 1999

188

Homo Ludens Type of project: site-specific sculpture Location: facade installation on Tingvallahallarna, Karlstad Material: polyester (reinforced with fibreglass), LED lamp Colour: shimmering orange-yellow Height: 1.4 m Diameter: 2 m Number of sculptures: 4 Realization: 2009 Budget: € 50 000 Commissioned by: Municipality of Karlstad My team: Fredrik Karlsson, Anna Christoffersson, Måns Holst-Ekström

189

DN Plaza Type of project: restoration and redesign of a new entrance area, collaboration with Gunilla Bandolin and Richard Nonas Location: the entrance area for the national newspapers of Dagens Nyheter and Expressen, Marieberg, Stockholm Material: boulders, granite paving, lighting Site area in total: ca 2000 m2 Realization: 1996 Commissioned by: Mariefast AB My team: Johan Paju, Christin Mattisson

190

Summer-Winter Type of project: temporary installation in public space Location: Södergatan/Skomakaregatan, Malmö Material: blocks of ice Size of each block: 2 × 2 × 2 m Number of ice blocks: 10 Exhibited: two sunny days in August 1988 Commissioned by: Municipality of Malmö 191

The Rain Fountain Type of project: temporary installation in public space Location: Hjulhammarsgatan, Malmö Material: water, irrigation system Parking lot area: 4000 m2 Height of mast: 7 m Exhibited: summer of 1996 Exhibition: Show-off Commissioned by: Malmö Festival 192

Pat the Horse Type of project: temporary installation in public space Location: statue of Karl X Gustav, Stortorget, Malmö Material: scaffolding, existing statue Height: 6.6 m Exhibited: 26/9–7/10/2007 Budget: € 1000 Commissioned by: Konstfrämjandet i Skåne and Malmö Citysamverkan Producer: Patrick Quist, Quist AB My team: Fredrik Karlsson Sponsor: MVB AB, Sydställningar i Sölvesborg AB Award: Skulpturpark 2007 193

Garbage Museum Type of project: travelling exhibition, collaboration with Gunilla Bandolin Location: several locations in Sweden Material: garbage, rebuilt truck trailer, computers, software, touch screens, speaker system, metal, glass Number of collaborating artists: 33 Exhibited: 1995–1997 Commissioned by: The Swedish Travelling Exhibitions Construction: The Swedish Travelling Exhibitions Composer: Anders Mårsén Computer animations: Christopher Garney, Cecilia Grimma, Unn Hjolman

194

X–X Type of project: temporary installation in the sound between Sweden and Denmark, collaboration with Gunilla Bandolin Location: Limhamn, Sweden, and Tårnby, Denmark Material: rubber buoys, rope, anchors Number of buoys on each side: 204 Size of each X: 100 × 100 m Exhibited: 1992 Commissioned by: private project Sponsors: Malmö’s chamber of commerce, Malmö Municipality, the Environmental Library of Lund 195

Proposal for the sculpture reconstruction after the fire. A building with no door or windows but still filled with thrown out items.

Kitchen Midden of Our Time Type of project: temporary installation in public space, collaboration with Gunilla Bandolin Location: Stortorget, Falkenberg Material: LECA blocks, thrown out items Intended additional material: plaster for covering of the small house, felt roof Size: 3 × 3 × 3 m Planned dates of exhibition: 17/5–13/9/1997 Date of fire: 12/5/1997 Date of final demolition: 10/6/1997 Exhibition: Sculptura 97 Commissioned by: Municipality of Falkenberg 196

We Started with Throwing Everything Out Type of project: part of retrospective exhibition together with Gunilla Bandolin Location: The Museum of Sketches, Lund Material: Home styled apartment printed on the inside of a large cylinder, piles of thrown out household items and personal belongings outside the cylinder Height of cylinder: 2.8 m Diameter of cylinder: 3 m Exhibited: 1/6–2/9/1990 Exhibition: Gora and Bandolin Commissioned by: The Museum of Sketches 197

Bus Shelter Type of project: prototype for bus stop in two different sizes Location: Gallsätter, Kramfors, Västernorrlands län Material: timber, zink plates, light Realized: 1997 Budget: € 5000 Commissioned by: Swedish National Road Administration; Västernorrlands Läns Trafik AB Contractor: Kvarnå Timmerhus Technical drawings: Markus Jansson 198

The Garden of Knowledge Type of project: exhibition garden during a housing exhibition Location: Western Harbour, Malmö Material: timber, bronze, iron, wood, geese, speaker, steam engine, toilet, sink, mirror, vegetation, stones, animals, furniture, asphalt, nuts, screws Area: 3500 m2 Number of garden rooms: 9 Exhibited: 2001 Exhibition: Housing exhibition ‘Bo01’ Budget: € 290 000 Commissioned by: Bo01; Municipality of Malmö My team: Caroline Dieker Contractors: Junsele Timmerhus ab, Tafoma, Skånska Klockgjuteriet ab, Broby Granit ab

199

Paradise Type of project: exhibition garden during a Nordic exhibition, NordForm 90, 1/6–2/9/1990 Location: Hjälmarekajen, Malmö Material: vegetation, water, light, coal, fabric, steam, glass, flouroscent paint, rubber, wood, polyester, concrete, steel Area: 1500 m2 Commissioned by: Municipality of Malmö Technical drawings: Maria Schad

200

201

Castles in the Air Type of project: exhibitions follies at a housing expo Location: Western Harbour, Malmö Material: straw, steel, wood Size of platform: 1.5 × 1.5 × 1.5 m Height of each castle: 1.6, 3.4, 5.2, 7.2, 9.4 m Exhibited: 2001 Exhibition: Housing exhibition ‘Bo01’ Commissioned by: Bo01; Municipality of Malmö Thatchers: Adam Oms AB Contractor: Smedjan, Kommunteknik Malmö 202

Two Piers Type of project: site-specific sculpture Location: road 335, Sidensjö, Örnsköldsvik Material: blasted stainless steel, wood, LED lamps Width: 1.5 m Length piers: 20 m, 30 m Area: 7100 m2 Construction: 2005 Budget: € 160 000 Commissioned by: Sigrid, Johan, and Jonas Nätterlund’s Memorial Fund My team: Steven Fahtz, Sara Schlytter Light consultant: Lars Bylund Engineer: BJN Projektteknik AB 203

Monika Gora Monika Gora, born in 1959, has worked as a landscape architect and artist with her own studio, GORA art&landscape, since 1989. She holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the Swedish University of Agriculture. Before starting her own office Monika Gora made extensive travels, including working and ­studying in Australia, China, Indonesia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the USA. She was a member of the Swedish National Council for Architecture, Form and Design ­between 2004 and 2009. In her practice she has consistently chosen to walk her own path – experimental and challenging – combining this with the ability to find practicable solutions. Monika Gora often works with seamless syntheses of landscape architecture, public art and building. In addition to permanent works, temporary installations within existing environments o ­ ccupy a central position in Monika Gora’s oeuvre. Some of her pieces have contained provocative ­elements but they have a­ lways actively contributed to the production of new meaning, spaces, and memories. The studio GORA art&landscape was founded in 1989 and has been directed by Monika Gora from the beginning. It is an awardwinning practice famous for systematically pushing the boundaries of art, landscape architecture, and architecture. The studio has comprehensive art and landscape architecture expertise inhouse as well an extensive network of collaborators representing different fields of expertise. The studio has gained both national and international acclaim for its projects, including being chosen as one of the world’s top 50 practices in Landscape Architecture.

www.gora.se [email protected]

Awards 2008 ‘Pat the Horse’, winner in ‘Skulpturpark 2007’, people’s choice, in connection with the Gallery Night 2007 1999 Landskrona Town Architecture Prize, for the plaza in front of the library in Landskrona 1993 Award from Swedish Concrete Industry, for landscaping at the head office of Malmö Energi 1988 Award from Swedish Stone Industry, for ‘Ormet’, a g ­ rotto in Kungsparken, Malmö

Research and writings 2007 2003 2002

‘Neuland – Bildende Kunst und Landschaftsarchitektur’, p 78–89 ISBN: 9783764386191 ‘Trees, Huts, Shelters’, article in ‘Small Structures’, ­Topos ‘Material und Bedeutung’, article in ‘Materialen’, ­Garten + Landschaft 2000 ‘Flyover Junctions from a Cyclist and Pedestrian ­Perspective in Sweden, Denmark and Holland’, report for the Swedish National Road Administration

204

1999 ‘Zon 1’, article in Magasin för Modern Arkitektur 1995 ‘Äldres Liv Och Nära Omgivning’, with Maria Nordström, commission by MOVIUM 1994 ‘Wasser – ein Medium’, article in ‘Wasser’, Garten + Landschaft

Catalogues and books 2011 2010 2010 2010 2009 2009 2009 2009 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008

2008 2008 2007 2007 2006 2006 2006 2005 2003 2002 1999 1998 1996 1995 1992

‘1000 × European Architecture’ ISBN: 9783938780107 ‘Interiour Gardens’ ISBN: 9783034606202 ‘1000 × Landscape Architecture’ ISBN: 9783938780602 ‘Star Landscape Architecture – the Stars of Landscape and Land Art’ ISBN: 9789812458490 ‘Landscape Architecture Europe, Presentation On Site’ ISBN: 9783764389505 ‘The Contemporary Garden’ ISBN: 9780714849584 ‘Collection: Landscape Architecture’ ISBN: 9783037680261 ‘XS Extreme: Big Ideas, Small Buildings’ ISBN: 978050034251 ‘The Sorcebook of Conteporary Landscape Design’ ISBN: 978061537912 ‘Contemporary Landscape Architecture’ ISBN: 9783866540217 ‘Landscape Design No 3 & No 6’ ISBN: 16727460 ‘Katalog 32’, Statens Konstråd ISSN: 16514564 ‘Avant Gardeners’ ISBN: 9780500513934 ‘The Sourcebook of Contemporary Landscape Design’ ISBN: 9780061537912 ‘The World Landscape Design Top 50’ ISBN: 9787561137871 ‘Contemporary Public Space’ ISBN: 9788876242731 ‘Roof Design’ ISBN: 9783937718613 ‘Gora–Bandolin Collaborations 1992–1998 and Recent Activites’ ISBN:9178560670675 ‘Hi-jacking a Home by Landscape and Art’, ‘scape, ISSN: 1389742x ‘Landscape Architecture Europe, Fieldwork’ ISBN: 3724375086 ‘The Good Life – New Spaces For Recreation’ ISBN: 9781568986289 ‘Contemporary Public Space’ ISBN: 8876242732 ’Kiruna – Helsingborg: Konstnärlig Gestaltning i Folkets Hus och Parker 2000-2005’, ISBN: 9163173352 ‘Kunst – Garten – Kunst’ ISBN: 3936859043 ‘Plätze Urban Squares’ ISBN: 3766715135 ‘Sculpture on the Eve of the Year 2000’ The Museum of Sketches, Lund ‘Modern Landscapes’, Museum of Architecture, Stockholm ‘Open Spaces. The City. Perceptions in Contemporary Landscape Architecture’ ISBN: 390151207 ‘Der Aussenraum’ ISBN: 3901210679 ‘NordForm 90’ ISBN: 91711900900

Selection of larger projects 2010 ‘La Familia’, adornment of Malmö University Hospital, commissioned by Region Skåne 2009 Proposal and design for new park, ‘Norra Badhusparken’, Östersund Municipality 2009 ‘Homo Ludens’, Tingavalla Hallarna, Karlstad, commission after invited competition 2008 ‘The Garden Island’, Vedeby roundabout, Karlskrona, winner in an invited competition 2008 Proposal for art installation along Highway E4 Nyköping, Municipality of Nyköping 2008 ‘Durus and Mollis’, Växjö Art Site 2008, commission by Växjö Municipality following an invited competition 2008 ‘The Future Park’, proposal for a park in central Linköping 2008 ‘Lindeängelund’, Malmö, proposal for a park build with excavated soil 2007 ‘Silver Tree’, adornment at the new house of culture in Luleå, commission by Luleå Municipality 2007 ‘The Signpost’, adornment for the new entrance to Tierp, commission by Tierp Municipality 2007 ‘Hyllie Water Park’, Malmö, vision for a new water park in Hyllie 2006 Concept for a new conference building with a roof ­terrace, City of Stockholm 2006 ‘The Glass Bubble’, a spherically shaped glasshouse at Western Harbour, Malmö, commissioned by Södertorpgården 2005 ‘Odenskog’, road E14, traffic junction ‘Odenskog’ in Östersund, landscaping, sculpture and light, commissioned by Swedish National Road Administration 2005 ‘Metamorphosis’, Linköping, an amorphous landscape in stainless steel, commissioned by the City of Linköping 2005 ‘Stensjö Terrace’, Malmö, a garden and a roof terrace, commissioned by the City of Malmö 2004 ‘Bubble’, sculpture in Folkets Park, Malmö 2004 ‘IOGT’, Helsingborg, new appearance of a yard, commission by the IOGT-NTO organization in Helsingborg 2004 ‘Two Piers’, Sidensjö, Örnsköldsvik, commission by Stiftelsen Sigrid, Johan, and Jonas Nätterlunds Minnesfond 2003 ‘Interferenzen’, Hannover, sketch for Rathenauplatz in Hannover and for the “KUNST GARTEN KUNST” exhibition at Sprengel Museum of Modern Art, Hannover, project initiated by the Department of Parks In the City of Hannover 2003 ‘BUS’, outdoor environment at the new Children’s hospital in Lund commission by Skåne County Council 2003 ‘Common Ground’, outdoor environment and adornments at the University hospital in Umeå, commission by Västerbotten County Council 2003 ‘Kyrkplatsen’, town square in Höganäs, commission by the Municipality of Höganäs 2002 ‘Foliage’, Örnsköldsvik, design of the atrium and the street outside the university building, commission by the Municipality of Örnsköldsvik

2001 ‘The Garden of Knowledge’, exhibition garden, commission by ‘Bo 01’ and the Municipality of Malmö 2001 ‘Karlslundstorget’, Landskrona, restoration and redesign of a suburban square, commission by the Municipality of Landskrona 2001 ‘Castles in the Air’, towers in different heights, made of metal and hay, commission by ‘Bo 01’ 2001 ‘Parapluie’, Helsingborg, commissioned by National Association of People’s Amusement Parks 2000 Concept for a Sculpture Park connected to the Museum for Sketches, Lund 1999 ‘Garden Settles’, Herrhagsgården, Herrhagsvägen, ­Municipality of Falun 1999 Redesign of the outdoor environment at the Air-Traffic Control Centre, Sturup International Airport, commissioned by the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration 1999 ‘Bus Stop Shelter 2’, prototype for a wooden bus stop shelter for the Stockholm archipelago, Värmdö, Stockholm, commissioned by the Swedish National Road Administration and SL (Stockholm Public Transport) 1999 ‘Library Plaza’, Landskrona, public space in front of the new library, sculpture commission by the Municipality of Landskrona 1998 ‘Bus Stop Shelter 1’, prototype for a timbered bus stop shelter in the north of Sweden, commissioned by the Swedish National Road Administration 1997 Roundabout, Norrmalmsgatan, Sundsvall, commissioned by the Municipality of Sundsvall 1997 ‘DN’, Marieberg, Stockholm, the new head entrance for the newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Expressen and the photo agency Pressens Bild, sculpture commissioned by Mariefast AB, in collaboration with Gunilla Bandolin and Richard Nonas 1996 ‘Lärkträdet’, Zenithgatan, Malmö, addition to a multistorey housing area from the ’70’s, commissioned by Skandia 1996 ‘Frosta Compulsory School’, Hörby, improvement of schoolyard, commissioned by the Municipality of Hörby, through Projektgaranti AB 1996 ‘Garbage Museum’, travelling exhibition 1996–98, with Gunilla Bandolin, 33 cooperating artists, plus a team of four, working on the digital adaptation, commissioned by Swedish Travelling Exhibitions 1994 ‘Air-traffic Control School’, Sturup International Airport, yard connected to a new buildind extension, stage 1, commissioned by the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration 1992 ‘Upper Secondary Nursing School’, Trelleborg hospital area, a garden linking together three very different ­houses, commissioned by Skåne County Council 1992 ‘Oncological Clinic’, Lund University Hospital, outdoor environment and indoor garden, commissioned by Skåne County council 1991 ‘Stafn’, Storgatan, Staffanstorp, Municipality of Staffanstorp

205

1991

‘The Narrow Path of Justice’, new entrance area to the court house in Österleden, Ystad, commissioned by the Swedish National Property Department 1991 ‘Malmö Energi’, Nobelvägen/Industrigatan, Malmö, outdoor environment at the new head office, commissioned by Malmö Energi AB (today E.ON) 1990 ‘Paradise’, Hjälmarekajen, Malmö, a 1500 m2 exhibition, commissioned by the municipality of Malmö, for the ex­ hibition ‘NordForm 90’ 1988 ‘Ormet’, Grotto in Kungsparken, Malmö, Malmö Beautification Society

Selection of installations 2007 ‘Pat the Horse’, Stortorget Malmö, a two week installation in connection with the Gallery Night 2007 2004 ‘Lagom Mycket Våld’, Stadsparken Kalmar, a project in ­cooperation with the artist Lone Larsen 2001 ‘Exhibition Anna’, Malmö, one year duration 1999 ‘The Worlds Biggest Bridal Train’, Pildammsparken, Malmö, private project. 1998 ‘A Drop of Light’, the parliament building, Riksplan, Stockholm, exhibition ‘Charged Light’, arranged within the context of ‘Stockholm — Cultural Capital of Europe 98’ 1998 ‘Nature Experiences’, four video monitors standing in a glade, showing a film about the fusion of nature and ­culture, with Per Sandén, Rosendal Gardens’, Djur­gården, Stockholm. 1998 ‘Ice Sculptures’, exhibition arranged within the context of ‘Stockholm – Cultural Capital of Europe 98’ 1998 ‘White Christmas’, Kungsträdgården, Stockholm, with ­Gunilla Bandolin 1997 ‘Kitchen Midden of Our Time’, Stortorget, Falkenberg, ­exhibition ‘Sculptura 97’, with Gunilla Bandolin 1997 ‘Campfire’ Vasaparken, Gothenburg, exhibition “Gothenburg Light Festival 1997“ 1996 ‘The Rain Fountain,’ Hjulhamnsgatan, Malmö, exhibition ‘Show Off’ 1996 ‘Man Is Most Dangerous For Man’, exhibition ‘Culture Bridge’ 1996 ‘Ozone Healing’, Sergels Torg, Stockholm, exhibition ‘New Stockholm’, with Gunilla Bandolin 1995 ‘Ein Volumen aus Licht’, Schottentor, Vienna, Austria, ­exhibition ‘Der Aussenraum’ 1995 ‘Erosion’, exhibition ‘Aqua 95’ 1994 ‘Vertical’, Chaumont-sur-Loire, France exhibition garden, exhibition ‘Acclimatations’ 1993 ‘82 years in prison’, Stumholmen, Karlskrona, exhibition ‘Bo 93’, with Gunilla Bandolin and Anders Mårsén 1992 ‘X–X’, Limhamn and Kastrup, installation in the Sound of Öresund, with Gunilla Bandolin, private project 1991 Conferment of doctor’s degrees, the Alnarp park, ­installation and happening, private project 1989 ‘Lumiere 1’ Pildammsparken, Malmö, production of an

206

outdoor performance with dance, music, light, slide ­projections and pyrotechnic effects, for the Municipality of Malmö 1988 ‘Summer-Winter’, Malmö, temporary installation for the Municipality of Malmö 1988 Open-air café in Kungsparken, Malmö, with Bozena ­Olsson, for the Municipality of Malmö 1988 ‘Green Wave’ Drottninggatan, Gävle, Exhibition ‘Bo 88’

Selected solo exhibitions 2008 Växjö Konsthall, Växjö 2007 ‘GORA & BANDOLIN’ at Skissernas Museum, Lund 2006 Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg 2006 Örnsköldsviks Museum & Konsthall, Örnsköldsvik 2006 Hässleholm Kulturhus, Hässleholm 1998 Kabusa Art Gallery, Ystad 1997 Rostrum Art Gallery, Malmö 1996 Maneten Art Gallery, Göteborg 1996 Traffic Art Gallery, Malmö 1995 ‘Razzia’. Kulturbolaget Rock Club, Malmö 1989 The Museum of Sketches, Lund 1988 Submarine Gallery, London

Selected group exhibitions 2011 ‘Ah Vadå då?’ Form/Design Center, Malmö 2011 ‘Swedish Love Stories’ at Superstudio Píu, Milano 2008 Sprengel Museum, Hannover 2008 ‘Travelling Kitchen Garden’, exhibition garden at Gunnebo Castle and Gardens for Göteborgs Lustgårdar 2006 Luleå Kulturhus, Luleå 2006 ‘The good life: New Public Spaces For Recreation’, Van Alen Institute on Hudson River Park’s Pier 40, New York, USA 2006 ‘Moviken Art 2006’, Movikens Masugn, Hudiksvall 2003 Skärets Konsthall, Skäret 2003 ‘Superpositions’, Sjöhistoriska Museet, Stockholm 2003 ‘The Sphere of Bodies/The Architecture of Spheres’, Gallery Visions, Asagaya College of Art & Design, Tokyo, Japan 2002 ‘Outside’, Staffantorp Art gallery 2001 ‘BO01’, Housing Expo, Malmö 1999 ‘The Moment in a Time of Change’, Örebro Art Gallery 1999 ‘Sculpture on the Eve of the Year 2000’, The Museum of Sketches, Lund 1998 ‘Charged Light’, The Art Academy, Stockholm 1998 ‘Garden & Craft’, Rosendal Gardens, Stockholm 1998 ‘Modern Landscapes’, Museum of Architecture, Stockholm 1997 ‘Brilliant’, Edsvik Art Gallery, Stockholm 1997 ‘Stone Memory‘, Breanäs Cultural Centre 1997 ‘Sculptura 97’, Falkenberg 1997 ‘Gothenburg Light Festival’, Gothenburg 1996 ‘Show-off’, Malmö 1995 ‘Der Aussenraum’, Vienna, Austria

1995 Spring exhibition, Charlottenborg Art Gallery, Copen­ hagen 1995 ‘Aqua 95’, Barbacka Art Gallery, Kristianstad 1994 ‘Art and Landscape’, Växjö, Oskarshamn, Stockholm 1994 ‘The Fire’, Ängvards Salong, Vamlingbo, Gotland 1994 ‘Acclimatations’, Chaumont-sur-Loire, France 1993 ‘Bo 93’ Housing Expo, Karlskrona 1992 Querhaus Art Gallery, Berlin 1992 Spring exhibition, Charlottenborg Art Gallery, Copen­ hagen 1991 ‘Portraits of Women Architects’, Museum of Architecture, Stockholm 1990 ‘NordForm 90’ Design Expo, Hjälmarekajen, Malmö 1988 ‘Bo 88’ Housing Expo, Gävle

Biographies of the Authors Sune Nordgren

Sune Nordgren was born in 1948 in Lund, Sweden. He trained as an artist and graphic designer. He worked as a publisher of art books and artists’ books from 1975 to 1990, then as an art critic for Dagens Nyheter, Swedish Television, and other media. He was director of Malmö Konsthall from 1990 to 96 and subsequently founding director of IASPIS in Stockholm from 1996 to 98 and the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England from 1998 to 2003. Following this he took on the task of founding director of the new National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway, from 2003 to 06. He has been project manager of Vandalorum, Centre for Art & Design and ­Kivik Art Centre (Architecture + Art), both in Sweden, from 2006 and onwards. Sune Nordgen also works as a freelance curator and writer for different projects around Scandinavia. www.sunenordgren.com

Lisa Diedrich

Adj. Prof. Dipl.-Ing., born in 1965 in Minden,Germany, studied architecture and urbanism in Paris, Marseille, and Stuttgart, ­science journalism in Berlin, and is a specialist in contemporary European landscape architecture. From 1993 to 2000 she was an editor of Topos European Landscape Magazine. From 2000 to 2006 she worked as a consultant to Munich’s chief architect at the city’s public construction department. Since 2007 she has been dedicating her career to academia, first as an assistant professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, now as a PhD Fellow at the Centre for Forest and Landscape, University of Copen­ hagen and as an adjunct professor at the School of Design, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Since 2006, she has run her own consultancy in Munich, working inter alia as the

editor-in-chief of the book series Landscape Architecture Europe (Fieldwork/On Site) and of ’scape the international magazine for landscape architecture and urbanism (for the Dutch LAE and Lijn in Landschap Foundations). [email protected] [email protected]

Måns Holst-Ekström

Måns Holst-Ekström, born in 1963, holds a licentiate degree in Art History from Lund University, Sweden. After his BA exam and psychology studies in Oslo, he initiated his research ­studies, spending extended periods in Rome and at Kyoto ­University’s School of Architecture in the early 90’s, becoming increasingly interested in landscape architecture. After receiving his licentiate degree he started teaching at the Department of Landscape Architecture at Sweden’s Agricultural University. Parallel with his academic career Måns Holst-Ekström has pursued an active interest in contemporary art as a critic, curator, and teacher at several art academies. From 2001 to 2006 he was senior lecturer at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm where he is still involved with the artistic research project ­’Italomemes – Ideas About Italy’. After a year at GORA art&landscape he returned to Lund University’s Division of Art History and Visual Studies in 2008. Måns Holst-Ekström’s publications cover academic writing, fiction, and the genres ­in-between, with a focus on how we relate sensorially to art, buildings, and landscapes. www.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=22822&p=MansHolstEkstrom www.monsholstekstrom.se www.italomemer.se

Gunilla Bandolin

Gunilla Bandolin is an artist and born in 1954 in Köping, Sweden. She is Professor of Art at the College University of Art, Craft and Design in Stockholm since 2006. Her sculptural/­ architectural works have been commissioned for the public realm in Sweden and abroad. She was Professor of Theoretical and Applied Aesthetics in the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Agriculture, Alnarp, Sweden, from 1995 to 2001, and was a guest professor at the Royal Academy of Technology at the School of Architecture from 2001 to 2006. She studied literature and philosophy at the University of Uppsala 1974–76, and qualified from the Journalist School in Stockholm in 1975. She was co-editor of the architecture and art magazine MaMa between 1995 and 1998, and is still active as an art and architecture critic. At present she is also studying the theory of practical knowledge at the University of Södertörn, Stockholm. www.bandolin.se

207

Words of thanks If you find this publication interesting it is mostly thanks to all the others involved in the book project. In addition to all employees and collaborators that I am most grateful to have been working with, I want to express my gratitude to my very first client, Gunnar Ericson at Malmö City, who trusted my cabability to implement projects – although I only had sketches and ideas. Many thanks to Jimmy Söderling for his support and enthusiastic participation and documenting of my projects through out the years. Many thanks to all my friends, no one mentioned and no one forgotten, that faithfully have been by my side and enthusiastically participated in many projects over the years. Finally a heartfelt thanks to my daughter Iris who gives me new perspectives on creativity and inspiration. She also reminds me daily that there is a world outside both art and landscape architecture. Monika Gora Malmö, 29/07/2011

Imprint Concept Monika Gora and Lisa Diedrich Development Monika Gora, Lisa Diedrich, Måns Holst-Ekström, Johan Folkesson Project management Katharina Sommer

This publication has been possible to realize with support from: Ivar och Anders Tengboms fond Olle Svanlunds stiftelse Stiftelsen Leo Holmbergs Minne Stiftelsen Längmanska Kulturfonden The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts

Project texts Monika Gora Essays Lisa Diedrich, Måns Holst-Ekström, Gunilla Bandolin, Monika Gora Translation Gunilla Florby

Credits All images by GORA art&landscape except for those indicated in the following list.

Copy editing Jessica Read

Peo Olsson (cover); Nils Bergendal (1, 2)

Graphic design Johan Laserna

the Glass Bubble: Åke E:son Lindman 9, 10–11, 16, 19, 21, 26; Fredrik Karlsson 18, 25; Werner Nystrand 22, 27; Aya Nakamura 24; Nils ­Bergendal 30–31, 175 top, 175 bottom, 176; Pia Schmidtbauer 32; Octatube 170

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA.

Ein Volumen aus Licht: Jimmy Söderling 34, 36, 38 top, 38 bottom, 39 top, 40–41, 42, 43 top, 43 middle, 43 bottom, 44 top, 50, 56, 56; U ­ rsula Striner 44 bottom; Maria Hellström 39 bottom Jimmys: Jimmy Söderling 50; Fredrik Karlsson 52, 56 top, 57; Truls Olin 54–55; Jan Lindmark 62; Gunilla Samberg 63; Lennart Jonasson 64, 66–67; Åke E:son Lindman, 69, 70, 71; Peo Olsson 73, 74–75, 76–77; Kjell Berglund 179 Metamorphosis: Åke E:son Lindman 78, 92; Fredrik Karlsson 81, 83, 184 top, 184 bottom; Urszula Striner 84; Per Mannberg 88–89; Lena Carlsson 94 top Library Plaza: Nils Bergendal 96, 99, 100; Jimmy Söderling 98; Benjamin Goss 104–105; Johan Paju 106, 107, 190 bottom; Anna Christoffersson 189 top, 189 ­bottom Pat the Horse: Fredrik Karlsson 6, 108, 115, 116–117, 118–119, 120, 121; J­ immy Söderling 192 top X–X: Jonas Gerdle 126, 140, 141, 144–145, 196 bottom; Riksutställningar 128 left, 128 right, 129, 130, 131 right, 132, 133 top, 133 bottom; Johan Laserna 136; Jimmy Söderling 137, 195 top, 195 bottom; Fredrik Karlsson 143, 197; Nils Agler 142, 144–145; Torsten Laurén 196 top

Bibliographic information published by the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche ­Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the ­Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be ­obtained. Distribution ActarBirkhäuserD Barcelona - Basel - New York www.actarbirkhauser-d.com © 2011 Birkhäuser GmbH Basel P.O. Box, 4002 Basel, Switzerland Part of ActarBirkhäuser Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF ∞

The Garden of Knowledge: Urszula Striner 146, 151 top, 153, 154–155; Håkan Nordlöf 148, 149; Jimmy Söderling 151 bottom, 157 top; Göran Buhre 157 bottom

Printed in Spain

Two Piers: Håkan Nordström 161 top, 161 bottom, 162; Bertil Westin 164–166

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-3-0346-0757-5 www.birkhauser.com