BUILDING RELOCATION AS A WAY OF PRESERVING LOCAL ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE: THE SWEDISH EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The article describes the European experience of valuable architectural heritage through their relocation. An example is the Swedish town of Kiruna, which appeared in 1900 as a settlement for mining workers. In the 1980s it was recognized as an object of historical, architectural and industrial heritage and served as an exemplary model of an industrial town. The city plan focused on buildings built before the 1930s and included some architectural structures from the 1950s and 1960s. A large number of these buildings are small wooden structures and it commonly referred to as «built in the Kiruna style». Until 2005, the local government consistently adopted detailed development plans, in which individual buildings received a protected status as the architectural heritage of the town.In 2004, a local mining company LKAB initiated an unprecedented project that consisted in moving a part of the town to another site. The purpose of this event was to continue the production of iron ore. As it turned out, the iron ore stretched under the urban development. After many discussions between the authorities, the public and the LKAB administration was reached a compromise plan.It consisted in building on a new site a new down town, which designed of the results of an open competition. This plan also provided for the relocation of existing valuable Kiruna facilities there. The new relocation plan is due to be completed in 2035, and it includes a list of 39 buildings. This list was based on the historicaland architectural values of the buildings, their technical condition, as well as the cost of relocation. However, for objective  reasons, most of the buildings in the down town were deleted from it, in particular the town hall and a quarter of residential buildings of the middle of the 20th century by the architect Ralph Erskine. The authors of the article give examples of both positive and negative experience of moving architectural monuments and analyze the causes and possible consequences of such interventions in the authentic environment of the town.