In a unique project the people of Hornstull in Stockholm aim to radically transform their neighborhood. The goal: turning it into the world’s largest outdoor gallery and a more eco-friendly place. Other cities around the world are taking note.
John Higson, initiator of the 100Hus project, is a man who realizes his visions. Photo: Malin Arnesson/Scanpix
John Higson used to be a boxer, but these days his punching bag hangs quietly off the ceiling of his office. Higson is fighting a different battle: to make his Stockholm neighborhood the world’s biggest outdoor gallery, a model for grassroots democracy, a laboratory for ecological ideas and a place where local history is as alive as the schoolchildren who are busy gathering it.
The project is called 100Hus (100 houses), and Higson and his team have given themselves till May 2010 to turn Hornstull upside down.
Power to the neighborhood
“It’s a declaration of love for the neighborhood that I live in,” 48-year old Higson says. “I wanted people to see Hornstull in all its beauty. It’s got a lot to do with social interaction and empowerment. When people realize they can make a change in their own neighborhood, then it leads to greater things.”
Hornstull's subway station has a quirky charm to it. Photos: Henrik Ismarker and Johan Lindström
Higson has lived in Hornstull for 20 years, but he’s actually British. He’s an entrepreneur — a former restaurant owner with a track record of organizing big outdoor events. He’s also good at overcoming red tape, and motivating people to join him.
Inhabitants are invited to regular meetings, and John Higson and his colleagues make door-to-door visits. Information is also passed on to families in the area through schools participating in the 100Hus project.
In response to a discovered interest in the area’s oral history, the local school Högalidsskolan put 100Hus on the curriculum. Twelve-year-old Felix explains: “We interview local people about their lives, about their work, and then we put it together with pictures and make a movie. It’s interesting because you learn a little more about this area. It's great fun to interview people.”
From lawless area to arty hot spot
Higson’s neighborhood doesn’t have much beauty to recommend it, apart from a picturesque walk along the water, facing the quiet island of Långholmen. But it has a vibrant grittiness — Higson and his team work next door to the favorite tattoo parlor of the Swedish branch of the Hell’s Angels — and a strong sense of community.
The beautiful side of Hornstull. Photo: Jonathan Lundqvist
Hornstull is situated on the western rim of Södermalm, Stockholm’s southern island. The area once boasted many shipbuilding workshops and even tobacco plantations. With the industrial revolution Hornstull became the home to small-time mechanical industries.
In the 1700s and 1800s it had a reputation of lawlessness, and Stockholmers used to say that the chances were that one would be stabbed with a knife if venturing there after dark. Destitute unemployed workers shared space with alcoholics and the sick in Stockholm’s last workhouse, which was only shut down in the 1960s.
Those days are past, but Hornstull retains a rough edge that some artists and musicians find inspiring. Low rents have also characterized the area. Over the last decade, however, apartment prices have climbed fairly steeply. In fact, they are expected to continue to do so, which is a big selling point for the 100Hus project. By pointing out the expected upward push on housing prices to local estate agents, Higson got them to supply him and his team with their first couple of millions of kronor of working capital.
Other sponsors include environmental technology companies eager to test new concepts in an urban environment, and local authorities.
Art mingles with green ideas
So, what will the sponsors get for their money?
Art, for sure. Artist Mikael Pauli, for example, is covering the surface of a giant housing facade just across from the Hornstull subway station with tiny crystals, creating the optical illusion that the side of the building moves when lit at night. Pauli calls the project Disco Ball.
Creative Hornstull already boasts some interesting street art. Photos: Brendan Plant and Michele Aqulia
Gunnar Hellström has started work on a sculpture in pink and red he calls the Love Shrine. “If you have a date, you can go past the shrine, and you kneel down and pray that your date is going to be successful,” Hellström says, himself kneeling to show how it’s done.
And there’s no shortage of environmental ideas: green spaces, roof gardens and even an entire housing front covered with a vertical garden.
The owners of the apartment building where industrial designer Marcus Heneen lives are thinking of putting wind turbines on the roof to save fossil energy. Heneen has said he’d like to do the design. “We plan to have poles on the rim along the roof, to mount three to five spherical wind turbines. Different options will render different amounts of energy,” he says.
Opening May 2010
Higson freely admits that he doesn’t know either what exactly will come out of the project. “We let it bubble and will see what comes up,” he says.
Higson says he is sure about one thing, though: the opening of the giant outdoor gallery will take place in May 2010, and 200,000 people are expected to attend — in addition to the 3,800 Hornstull families that he hopes to involve directly in the project.
If all goes well, Hornstull will be unrecognizable, except presumably for the Hell’s Angels shop next door and, possibly, Higson’s punching bag.
Jasper Kelly
Jasper Kelly is an Irish freelance journalist who has worked in several European countries, including Sweden, where he lived for three years and visits regularly. He’s a fan of the Swedish way of keeping things simple, such as in the greeting "Hej,” which means both hello and goodbye. It’s easy on the vocabulary but hard to know whether Swedes are walking into your life or out of it.
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