Nobel Center

59.329444444444 18.078888888889Coordinates: 59 ° 19 ′ 46 ″ N , 18 ° 4 ′ 44 ″ E

There is currently (October 2014) a yellow customs building and two red warehouses on the designated area. The volume of the planned building is shown schematically in gray.

The Nobel Center , former project name Nobel Prize Center is a planned buildings for the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm , which the currently in, among other Old Town located Nobel Museum is scheduled to start. In addition to the exhibition rooms, a library, meeting and event rooms, a restaurant and sales rooms are planned. An area on the Blasieholmen peninsula in Stockholm was chosen as the site. In the course of the preparations, an architecture competition took place , with the proposal by the British / German architect duo David Chipperfield and Christoph Felgers winning.

background

In December 2011, the Nobel Prize Foundation and the City of Stockholm signed a letter of intent to build the Nobel Center near the Swedish National Museum . The main reason given was the too small premises of the Nobel Museum in the stock exchange ( Börshuset ). The Nobelhuset joint-stock company, which belongs to the Nobel Prize Foundation, was allocated a building site on the Blasieholmen peninsula in August 2012. According to the plan, the construction area is 20,000 m², with the aboveground building parts limited to 12,400 m². The basic funding was secured by two donations totaling 800 million SEK by the Erling-Persson-Stiftung and Knut-und-Alice-Wallenberg-Stiftung. The total costs calculated at 1.2 billion SEK are to be financed privately. The City of Stockholm is letting the property and, once the building is completed, will make an annual contribution of SEK 30 million. Construction was scheduled to start in 2015 and the inauguration should take place in 2018. It is now planned for the end of 2019 ^[obsolete] .

Architecture competition

An international architecture competition took place for the design of the building and the connected public space. In the first stage, 12 architectural offices were invited as participants. Of these, three offices entered the final with their proposals in November 2013. These were David Chipperfield Architects (England / Germany) as well as Gert Wingårdh (Sweden) and Johan Celsing (Sweden).

The Nobelhuset design by David Chipperfields and Christoph Felgers with a facade made of vertical brass elements and glass won the competition in April 2014. Among other things, the proposal includes a horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,400 seats in which the Nobel Prizes will be presented after completion.

Planning area

The planning area borders in the northeast and southeast on quays on inner-city bays of the Baltic Sea , in the southwest on the National Museum with the associated museum park, and in the northwest on the street Hovslagargatan with buildings from the early 20th century. The cultural and historical value of the Blasieholmen peninsula is estimated to be very high, as it includes the state monument ( Byggnadsminne ) National Museum. On the site there is currently a customs building from 1876 and two port warehouses from 1910, which used to be part of the busy port area on the Baltic Sea bays. The Stockholm City Museum rates the three buildings as particularly valuable in historical, cultural and artistic terms, as well as evidence of a former urban milieu. In the architecture competition, it was not explicitly stated that the buildings should be preserved in their current location, which all participants took advantage of. The city administration is currently investigating whether it is possible to move the buildings.

criticism

Due to the cultural and historical value of the planning area and its location in the city center, the project is controversial. Critics such as the Stockholm Skyline network or residents who have come together in Facebook groups are of the opinion that the planned buildings are too dominant and not in harmony with the surrounding buildings. Some critics are calling for the customs house and port warehouses to be kept on site as they are the last of their kind in the Stockholm port area. The petition initiated by the Facebook group Bevara Tullhuset had gathered around 2,300 signatures at the end of October 2014. The cultural association Stockholms sjögård and the association of road users in the Stockholm archipelago ( Skärgårdens trafikantförening ) pointed out that important quays for ferries and excursion boats will be lost as a result of the construction.


View of the planning area from the National Museum (left) and over the Nybroviken Bay (right), with the yellow plastered customs house and the red port warehouses.