Critique: building appraisals Third-Way architecture: Stockholm Globe City

摘要

Swedish twentieth- century architecture has almost become synonymous with modernism and 'the architecture of the Welfare state'. Far less is known about the architectural conceptions that came to pass in relation to societal changes at the beginning of the 1980s, which has been termed 'the end of the Welfare state or the Third Way'. Taking the Stockholm Globe Arena (1982-1989) and the concomitant building complex Globe City as a starting point, the article discusses Third-Way ideology and its relationship to architecture. The hypothesis is that architecture can be seen as a contributing agent in shaping the ideological shift that re-arranges late-twentieth century society, but also, that architecture responds to these shifts. The article focuses on two themes. First, how conceptions of the new public good were carried through and how new relationships between private and public changed the agenda for planning and building. These transformations are investigated in relation to the production process, whilst the second theme, the capitalisation of the social domain, is analysed in relation to architecture as a cultural and material object.