The KTH-A building on Östermalmsgatan 26, and its 45 years of proud service as an institution producing and disseminating architectural knowledge. The building was inaugurated in 1970 and designed by a team of architects led by Gunnar Henriksson and John Olsson.
This new-brutalist masterpiece was voted the ugliest building in Stockholm 2008 and was severally damaged in an (accidental) fire in 2011; then facing demolition for the second time (the first one being after the vote) it was ultimately spared that grim fate.
Something has to be said about the location: Östermalmsgatan 26 – Uggleviksgatan – Karlavägen – Rådmansgatan.
It may or may have something to do with how the vote turned out in the end. – Why? Well, the address is located in an area that most likely did not embrace the idea of anything being built at all to begin with and that which was eventually erected.
I for one would like to have had seen that happen. And it is a fact that one of the last significant architectural contributions to the inner city is actually from 1970.
There is still no sign of an Architect Museum nor is there of a Design counterpart and this country is supposedly know for (among other) precisely those things. “Scandinavian/Nordic” architecture and design.
Instead they turned 45 years of Swedish architectural heritage – a building that literally defines what an institution is – into a serviced office/start-up creative digital future proof locality.
The café looked really enticing when I passed it the other day.
Stockholm is until this day still lacking a museum of Architecture and Design. And even less so a building to actually house them…