i am five or six years old and my family has just moved into a yellow wodden house with a hedged garden. my brothers and i are strictly forbidden to go outside the gate when playing outdoors on our own. on one occasion, though, the temptation is too strong. i lure my younger brother to go with me and dig tunnels in the gigantic snow banks alongside the road, banks the size of mountain ranges during the cold winters of the mid-1960s. the reason i remember this occurrence is not that we get caught (we do not get caught), but because after a while i am overcome by remorse, stop the game and tell my brother that we must go back into the garden, otherwise perhaps mum and dad, when they get back home from work, will see our disobedient play on the television news. i walk round fretting about this for the rest of the day, and i heave a sigh of relief on finding that television does not bother to report our illicit diversion:

i do not have the capacity to understand the world, but nevertheless create images of the way in which things and apparently disparate occurrences can conceivably be connected. i construct a home-made conception of the world, an image which is more palpable and more real than reality.

2.

i do not remember the general destruction, the demolition sites and the temporary road bridges over the vast craters in the ground where the brunkeberg ridge and the klara quarter used to be. i do not remember everything being "ugly", "messy" and "out of order". my recollection of stockholm in the 1970s is an image: a picture on a poster of a busty prehistoric stone age blonde in a skimpy rat skin bikini. the blonde has a tail about twelve inches long, smooth and hairless, but with a little tuft at the end. the poster is advertising a film called: when women had tails.

twenty years later, the recollection proves correct. on an impulse i go to the national film institute in stockholm and find the poster in the archives. the film - apparently some kind of (sex) comedy - turns out to be italian, made in 1972, the year of my 12th birthday. i even got the title right. the original title is: quando le donne avevano la coda. the leading blonde is played by senta berger.

the city is invisible; a picture, a piece of paper, a poster is more vivid in my memory than the reality, than the city in which the poster is put up. the image is visible, whereas the city is invisible.

3.

my first attempts at drawing houses are a few years younger than the recollection of the stone age blonde. i draw free-standing rectilinear blocks of housing in an undefined landscape, tower blocks and composite volumes distributed in an indifferent cartesian space. mind you, i am still living in that yellow wodden house in a hedged garden at the time. i do not know anybody who lives in a flat, not even in the city. if i ever end up in a public housing suburb resembling what i draw myself i experience alienation and dreariness:

only the image of the architect's profession and task, only the image of urbanity, of urban planning as a discipline, as it is presented in the few books and journals available on the subject in the local public library, only the buildings and planned suburbs i see depicted are present in my mind's eye when i myself put pencil to paper in order to create my own images of possible reality.

4.

with our present planning and building act, and this is often the case in politics, the perception of the world of the innocent child, and the opinions of "the man in the street" are romanticised. it is only "the grassroot" who is very pelpably affected by a planning proposal, by virtue of being a tenant or property owner within the area covered by the draft plan, who is deemed to have the right of protest, and as a consequence carries the full responsability of revising both the work of the planning administration as well as the decisionmaking of the politicians. consequently the viewpoints expressed at colloquies or in appeal proceedings can, without exception (and rightly so, as a visit to any "colloquy" will confirm) be dismissed as uninstructed, as instinctive and categorial resistance to change and a manifestation of the n.i.m.b.y. (notinmybackyard) effect. inthis way, planners and politcians are spared having to concern themselves with any other image of the city and reality than their own.

5.

the no. 9, 1994 issue of mama has a cover which - unusually for an architectural journal - has recieved muchattention in the media. the picture has been reproduced by both the big national dailies and one of the national evening papers. it is an arranged picture showing sergels torg invaded by donald ducks. the article which the picture illustrates talks of, among other things, imagineering1. why of all the articles published in the magazine over the years has this one aroused so much attention and become so widespread? because of the cover; because of an image, naturally.

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metaphorics

1. the wall as metaphor

power and might is sexy, regardless of the policy it represents. berlin divided trembled with lust. two hatefully opposed political systems could in berlin not take their eyes off of each other and shuddered at each other's touch. with west berlin, the phallus of the west, rammed into the anus of the eastern bloc, moscow could hardly do anything but insist on safe sex and a condom as protection against political infection and mass emigration. the wall was built. but then again, the only safe sex is no sex.

walls, closedness, opacity, darkness and mass are in modernist tradition metaphors of evil. for decades the berlin wall was the example par excellence of permanent oppression and cold warfare. while if the iron curtain, instead of splitting a european metropolis and cosmopolitan nation had cut through uninhabited central european forests and divided germanic and slavic tribes, and if contact between the populations of the two economic cultures, and the rulers in washington and moscow for that matter, had been reduced to prudish second-hand information via hollywood films and pravda, world history most likely would have taken a different course. the foremost characteristics of walls are not permanence and potency. the foremost characteristics of walls are instability and impotence. sooner or later a wall is pulled down or collapses.

2. the void as metaphor

the trinity of the void, transparency and the absence of mass (tabula rasa) are in modernist tradition metaphors for openness, goodness, democracy, for space and society liberated from social hierarchies and class differences, for infinite potential, limited only by the potency and creativity of the heroic subject. the void can be filled with anything, regardless of historical precedent. these metaphorics have also gained a foothold in the establishment, because of how the great physical distances inevitably resulting from creating structural voids seem to have rather the opposite effect: the void and great physical distances serve as a permanent disciplinary factor in existence. while the bastille and the berlin wall can be pulled down once and for all, the distances of place de la concorde, broadacre city and la ville radieuse must be constantly reconquered; there is a price tag on every crossing and communication. mobility craves resources. you pay in money, time, labor, planning and (self-) discipline.

after the first rodney king trial the largest metropolis of the american west burns. koreans who have arrived in california long after the afro-americans have already advanced to a higher standing in society and suffer the same aggression as the white people of l.a. the "melting pot" does not exist, in spite of an egalitarian and originally revolutionary constitution. invisibilities, rather than built walls, separate classes and races like they always have. those who have a choice, choose to protect themselves, not with walls and barbed wire (which could be pulled down), but by leaving metropolitan l.a. and moving to phoenix or santa fe¹, by establishing great physical distance from the undesirables. mobility craves resources.

during a visit to the national museum of fine arts in copenhagen, i notice one painting in particular. in the painting there are two classicist buildings, which are linked by a wall fronting the street. there is a gateway in the wall. the symmetry of the motif as well as of the composition in the painting draws one's attention away from the buildings and the paved street in the foreground, to the space beyond the wall and the gateway, to the vanishing point of the perspective, creating an expectation of a spatial climax and a climax of substance. instead one finds - nothing, a climax of emptiness, transparency and immateriality.

the painting is by vilhelm hammershøi. its void and its nothingness lingers in my memory. in a fantasy i long to cross the street, pass through the gate and enter that nothing-at-all. i soon realize that my reaction to the painting has nothing to do with any artistic qualities. my fascination and the suggestiveness of the painting have other origins. i have had a close encounter with the utopian within me.

¹john d. sanphillippo: los angeles, an encyclopedia of the city, the swedish review of architecture magasin för modern arkitektur (mama), 10-1995.

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monstrosity

the minotaur, meandering in its prison, in a labyrinth so ingeniously constructed that nobody can escape it unaided, ponders: "i am the freest of all beings." blithely the beast roams through the twists and turns of the labyrinth. movement, mobility and communication are strong metaphors for freedom. one may ask whether the minotaur is aware that the labyrinth is a closed system and that there is a world outside its walls, but this is hardly a question that occupies him. sooner or later he always bumps into something - or someone - to eat.

the minotaur is a monster, the fruit of the queen's lust and union with a bull - at least, according to the king, who will not recognize a monster as his son. wherein does the monstrosity of the minotaur consist? not in hooves, fur or horns. his obvious lack of interest in asserting any kind of humanity, his blindness to, and unwillingness to submit to and meekly acknowledge the inferiority imputed to him make him a beast.

so cunningly is the labyrinth designed that it has been possible to calculate in advance almost exactly which way the beast will choose to go. the labyrinth has no blind alleys. all corridors are interconnected. every choice of path inevitably leads to a new situation of choice with nothing but ready-made options, all the consequences of which are predictable.

the likelihood of the beast within its lifetime choosing the correct way on a sufficient number of consecutive occasions to find the way out of the labyrinth is negligible. the exit can therefore be left unguarded, and it can be argued, with good reason, that the beast remains in the labyrinth of its own volition.

this choice on the part of the beast to remain in its prison is crucial; the minotaur is at least semi-human, and his blood ties with the crown make it ethically, emotionally and politically unfeasible in a righteous nation to detain or dispose of him.

in the myth, it is the ingenious artist, engineer and architect daidalos - the romans called him daedalus - who constructs the labyrinth at the queen's command, thereby solving the delicate problem of detaining the beast in a manner acceptable to the empathetic mother, the spiteful father as well as to the sense of justice in society. the labyrinth of daidalos is nothing less than the triumph of instrumental philanthropy.

so cunningly is the labyrinth constructed that the minotaur is held captive, not by walls - the metaphor of imprisonment and oppression - but great physical distances in an infinite void - the metaphor of light, liberty and change: living and searching for food in the labyrinth is both energy and time consuming. every day the beast covers considerable distances. when he gets his reward in the form of something - or someone - to eat, he has already paid for it dearly out of his time and energy. the next reward will be just as far off and will require just as much of him and prove an equally long and arduous journey. the minotaur is the nomad and the commuter constantly on his way in perpetual motion in an infinity and peripherality imploded into the labyrinth.

in romanticized depictions of the bustle and diversity of the city, of its emancipatory anonymity and vastness, of its wealth of destinies and secrets, the labyrinth and the labyrinthine are too readily used as concise metaphors of these desirable culture-creating qualities of the urban condition. the labyrinth of daidalos is a monster, just as much as the beast, which is its captive.

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plutocracy

1.

until 1921 only taxpayers have the right to vote in the stockholm city council elections. only very large incomes and accumulations of wealth are taxed, which reduces the electoral body to one percent or so of the population. but all taxpayers, even women and private companies can vote, and most voters have more than one vote: in 1863 only 1,900 people and companies vote, but the total number of votes is 145,000¹. the city is a plutocracy resembling the stock issuing companies of our time in which influence is proportional to how much stock you own. thus it lies in the interest of those who "hold stock" in the city that information about wealth and finances is made public. the better off you can show that you are, the more power you have in the public arena of city politics.

(the swedish catalogue of the nobility is a surviving expression of this former publicity and "transparency" of the wealthy and powerful. it is a public listing of all members of the swedish house of nobles, their interrelations, dates of marriages, birthdates of children, university degrees, etc. the catalogue is complete and perfectly indiscreet. no exceptions or concessions to discretion are made.)²

2.

but the public realm in plutocratic society is the concern of the "haves" only. the "have nots" are excluded from power and publicity, they are not admited into the "shareholders meeting". learning from revolutions and social unrest in both america and europe, concessions are made in the western world to admit the masses into public space and political arenas. universal suffrage is introduced. but while the masses immigrate into publicity, urbanizing it so to speak, the establishment chooses to emigrate. no longer does it lie in its interest to publicly disclose assets that in an egalitarian system do not give political power in proportion to these assets. by divorcing publicity from power, the marriage of publicity and the lower classes becomes possible.

¹staffan högberg: stockholms historia, bonnier fakta, stockholm 1981.
²annette kullenberg: överklassen i sverige, tidens förlag, stockholm 1974.

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stockholm

1.

capital of the swedish nation and the centre for its politics and culture. the swedish parliament and the swedish government by international standards have a very high representation of women (41,3 and 50,0 percent respectively). if it is true that women only have the representation in politics which men deliberately abstain from, on account of low prestige and little real influence over their own lives and those of other people, the high representation of women in swedish politics implies that reality is occuring somewhere else, that real social prestige is to be found elsewhere.

stockholm's head of city planning administration, ulrika francke, its vice mayor of city planning, monica andersson, and its vice mayor of real estate and traffic, annika billström, are all women¹. a majority of the city building and planningcommittee's permanent members are women. the journalists writing in stockholm newspapers about architecture and urban development are women.

men are builders. men want tools for christmas. men climb ladders to repair leaking gutters and roofs. constructionworkers, electricians, painters and carpenters are men. if it is true that the act and passion of building is predominantly the concern of men, the high percentage of women in position to build and administer the physical public urban space - together with the fact that none of the ladies andersson, billström or francke has a degree in architecture or civil engineering - implies that in the city of stockholm of our time neither the act of building nor the public space of the city is a prominent forum for the expression of power and contemporary culture.

2.

since 1991 the scene of the annual recurrent and ever-growing stockholm water festival. the "genuine" city-dweller is puzzled by the festival and asks himself what the point is to eat food which is admittedly cooked by famous stockholm restaurateurs but is served on paper plates and eaten sitting on uncomfortable benches, when the food is the same as is served in each restaurateur's "real" restaurant - restaurants, moreover, which are there all the year round. what is the point of hot dogs which are the same as at any hot dog stall but more expensive? what is the point of expensive, uninteresting t-shirts? the festival offers nothing which is not to be found somewhere else or at a different time of year. the so-called stockholm water prize is an artificial way for the entrepeneurs of the event (the festival is a private initiative, operated as a business) to try to achieve something specific to the place and occasion. stockholmers flee the city physically or mentally those days in august when the festival, with its stalls and its trumpery, invades and occupies large parts of the historic city centre. but the festival is a big crowd-puller (3.7 million visits by 1.3 million people during the 10 days of the festival in the summer of 1994²). it is neither absurd nor irrational. of course the festival has a point:

in society, the city, like religion and art, has lost the initiative. new jersey, so greatly despised by the denizens of manhattan, is today a bigger locomotive of the national economy than manhattan and wall street on the other side of the hudson river³. malmö, swedens third largest city, according to the 1989 state commission on the future of the metropolis in sweden, is no more than a centre for regional services, just like any other one-horse town you care to mention, and no longer of any specific national interest. in other words, the nation would hardly notice should the malmöers and their city over night drift away and sink into the ocean. the same fate is in store for göteborg, sweden's second largest city, should the volvo automobile industry move elsewhere⁴. and stockholm - how much fun is stockholm? how much fun is old town, a monocultural enclave with no foodstores but heaps of hand-thrown pots sold by innumerable predicable potteries. how much fun is drottninggatan? how much fun would the södra klara district have been today if it had never been torn down and "developed" after the war? how much fun are the plans for sergels torg, hammarby sjöstad or st erik? for the great mass of the people scattered on the periphery and banished from the drawing rooms and committee rooms of the city, the traditional city really has only one "interesting" phenomenon to offer, namely a lot of people:

the inhabitants and dwellers of the city tend to prefer that which is time-, space- and cost-efficient to that which is "natural". during the 1980's we could see young urban professionals pay any amount of money for descending three times a week into a windowless basement to work out. illuminated trails and recreation facilities in parks and walking areas are certainly free of charge, but a better recreation result can be obtained more rapidly with machinery, which can just as well be in a basement somewhere and often is. the gym is compact and efficient. the outdoor jogging run along space- and maintenance-demanding illuminated trails and green areas, entirely dependent as it is on unreliable self-discipline, takes second place to rationality and technology. people go hiking in the mountains for one week of the year instead: a more time- and experience-efficient form of outdoor activity than the occasional blackbirds and hares encountered on the illuminated trail. to the great mass, in analogy, the stockholm water festival, limited as it is in both time and space, is naturally ideal as an intensive, time-efficient way to meet a lot of people (presumably the festival participant is a sexual being and the festival crowds are experienced as "sexy": the more people, the sexier.). visiting the stockholm water festival is just as intensive an experience of frequenting a city as the mountain holiday is intensive and time-saving for the mountain backpacker.

stockholm water festival is more interesting to the great mass of people than the "real" city and the "real" citizens. the "genuine" city today is, at most, a means of enjoyment and amusement, just like religion and art, for a set of fans and groupies, as well as for a certain stratum of its inhabitants who have access to the social life of drawing rooms and high society. the city dwellers are neither sufficiently numerous nor sufficiently productive to feed the nation, but they are numerous enough to offer the productive part of the nation the festival which is the prototype of the future, post-metropolitan stockholm.

3.

future home of jippo maximus. hype - or the "jippo" - (as discipline) shows, to a greater extent than any streetscape visions⁵ or antiquarian pursuits, ways in which an agoraphobic establishment⁶ can address the crisis of the city and urban life:

when dusk falls, there rises out of the sea a phantom city of lights against the sky. a myriad of embers twinkle in the darkness. a golden spider's web in the sky. - maxim gorky on coney island 1903. andreas theve: coney island cyclone, a1 magazine no. 2, 1992.