A Nobel Prize in Architecture?

The only liberal art that has its own Nobel Prize is, as is well known, literature. We do not have a Nobel Prize for painting or architecture. There are also no Nobel Prizes in the humanities. The Economics Prize is perhaps the closest thing to the humanities, but it was established in 1968, long after Alfred Nobel’s death.

Yet it is currently as if the Nobel Foundation, which owns and manages the Nobel Prizes, is looking for a way to award a Nobel Prize in architecture.

The foundation wants to create a new and representative building in central Stockholm. This is a project that has been going on for many years and has stirred up many feelings among Stockholmers and Swedes in general.

Previously, there were far-reaching plans to build a “Nobel Center” on a place in Stockholm called Blasieholmen, where, among other things, the historic National Museum, built in the mid-19th century, is located. The proposed building aroused strong protests from both the local population and vocal cultural figures. In the middle of a part of Stockholm characterized by older buildings and classic architecture from the 19th century, a large modernist square in glass and steel was to be built and would also represent the tradition-laden brand of the Nobel Prize.

To the delight of many Swedes and Stockholmers, this project was definitively stopped in 2018. It was above all the modernist character of the building, designed by the British and world-famous architect David Chipperfield, that caused offense. Another brutal modernist box in glass and metal placed in beautiful Stockholm surroundings by the water.

Now a modernist creation is to be built at a well-known location called Slussen, which is indeed very central in the original Stockholm, but which traditionally has more of an industrial port character. But this time too, the building will be designed by David Chipperfield and this time too, modernist straight lines will characterize the building. Now it is not glass and steel that will guarantee the aesthetic value of the brick construction.

The City of Stockholm owns the project and has now made a formal decision that it should be implemented. The building permit application has been submitted by the developer. Construction is scheduled to start in 2027 with an inauguration in 2031. The work has not yet begun. And since the decision is quite new, it is only now when the decision has been made and when pictures of what the building will look like, that protests have once again begun to be heard.

One of the politicians in left-wing Stockholm who has publicly protested is Christian Democrat Nike Örbrink. And it is the architecture that bothers her. “The way the building is designed now, it looks like they want to blow up a couple of modernist blocks in pure Minecraft style in the middle of a sensitive urban environment. It is nice to have a new museum in Stockholm, but we want a new proposal that harmonizes better with the surrounding classical architecture in [the neighboring district of] Södermalm,” she says in a press release.

If this new “Nobel Center” is built according to current plans, Stockholmers will be horrified by yet another modernist building in central Stockholm and will probably just stop looking at it.

There is a growing resistance worldwide to what many consider to be so anti-human modernist architecture. That resistance will probably eventually defeat modernism, but unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Or maybe we are. The people of Stockholm managed to stop the last project. Maybe they can succeed once again.

The new proposal is less brutal than the first, but at the same time, opposition to modernist architecture has increased significantly in recent years. So, we’ll see if David Chippefield wins the Nobel Foundation’s Nobel Prize in Architecture this time.