The Postgirobygget building in Oslo is perhaps the least successfully implemented Nordic high-rise building design. Firstly, it has a relatively dark metal-cladding-type facade. Secondly, the building is rather voluminous and thirdly it is positioned in the lowest part of what is called the Oslo 'amphitheatre'. That is the green hills which surround this city at the end of the Oslofjord. By its location the building is very visible to anyone living or working on the hills around the city centre as well as many in the city-centre - maybe some two hundred thousand people - on a clear day. The fantastic view from the top of the Postgirobygget is however enjoyed only by those working in the building.
A curiosa maybe, but in fact some years ago the previous deputy director of Riksantikvaren (The Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway) Sissel Rønbeck, suggested that the building should be torn down. Instead the City Council of Oslo granted the owners, the state-owned property-company Entra, permission to add a few more floors and some more glazing to the construction. The explicitly expressed purpose here was to make the building more acceptable to the general public. The fact that it would potentially also add to the prospective income of the owners was rather glossed over.
A property company is basically like any other company. Its reason d'être is to generate profits for the owners – whether private or public. Nothing wrong with that, but what becomes troublesome is when this drive for "success at the market" is primarily expressed in terms of the desire to build as much and/or as high as possible on "our site".
This issue of the Journal of Nordregio looks at the converging and diverging tendencies towards high-rise construction solutions across the Nordic capitals. First and foremost we have tried to learn more about city-centre densification and the extent to which such policies actually express themselves as high-rise buildings.
What have we found? Firstly, that Oslo seems to be the city edging ahead in this field, in particular since they are adding ten relatively high and voluminous buildings in a row (the Barcode-project, see pp 22-25) close to the two already existing rather massive constructions Postgirobygget and The Oslo Plaza Hotel in the downtown city-centre area.
Secondly, that there are very strong forces in Stockholm pushing the idea of building more extensively around the Central Station as well as in other parts of the commercial city centre. For example a 16 storey high new hotel and large conference facility is currently under construction just south of the station rendering the famous profile of the City Hall (Stadshuset) much less visible (pp 14-18). In addition a 100 metre high hotel skyscraper will probably also be erected outside the main entrance to the Station.
The driving force behind most of these property developments in Stockholm is Jernhusen, the property-company of the state-owned SJ (Swedish Railways). Similarly, in Oslo it is primarily HAV (owned by the city's port authorities), ROM (owned by the Norwegian State Railways) and Entra (owned by the Ministry of Trade and Industry) who are emerging as the centres of power behind the changing cityscapes.
A number of emergent and interrelated questions however ought to be discussed here, not least how the current agenda of these companies corresponds with currently fashionable and vigorously promoted policies on environmental sustainability and climatic adaptation.
Many Nordic planners are members of what is called the METREX, the network of European metropolitan regions, exchanging ideas and experiences about urban and regional planning. The last congregation of METREX was held in May in the Paris-region.
Indeed even in the French capital significant conflicts rage about how to shape the city- and landscapes of the future. In fact one of the proposals for the future of Paris is to build a 40 kilometre long wall of skyscrapers around the city!
As in the Nordic countries however the debate is essentially about who should have the power to decide. On the surface it can often look like a fight between the President and the regional council, or the Conservatives versus the Socialists. The likelihood is however that the final decisions will be made by those who can provide the money, those who have access to the public funds - and those who are best able to engage and involve the building industry, property developers and the architectural elites. Such a combination always seems to make "a winning team" in these situations.
In this issue of the Journal of Nordregio we have changed the way we present the text. While we previously had three columns as the standard, we now have two. The purpose is to make the text more accessible.
The theme of the next issue will be Northern Sparsely Populated Areas. In the last issue in 2009, to be published in early December, we plan to take a closer look at Nordic approaches to climate change.
By Odd Iglebaek, Editor