Malin Pettersson Öberg

This anthology explores Stockholm’s urban design and planning process through the archive of models kept at the Stockholm Urban Planning Department and a film by artist Malin Pettersson Öberg made there in 2017. Who builds the city and for whom? How does the shape of the city relate to the shape of people’s lives? And how can the archive’s models serve as witnesses to the city, tools for memory and historiography as well as for reflecting and challenging the city we now have? 

Around these and other pressing questions, a dozen invited authors and interviewees reflect from their different practices within fields such as art, architecture, urban planning, literature and film studies. The book addresses the housing issue, historical and contemporary aspects of Stockholm’s planning process, and the potential of the miniature world – in a carefully crafted view of the city. The book is based on a film. It unfolds and deepens questions in the script of Malin Pettersson Öberg’s film The Model Archive (2017), and in the solo exhibition The Model Archive, curated by Mikaela Steby Stenfalk at ArkDes – Sweden’s National Centre for Architecture and Design in 2018. The film and exhibition were carried out with the support of Stockholm’s Urban Planning Department. This book is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Malin Pettersson Öberg and Mikaela Steby Stenfalk, which has been made possible thanks to a number of financial supports.

Planned publication date: September 2023. Publisher: Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing

Link to film: https://vimeo.com/217530252