Today [July 5] in Sweden:

Recension: Karlatornet

[machine translation]

Review: Karlatornet

By: Mark Isitt

Karlatornet may represent hubris, bankruptcy, missed deadlines and broken budgets. But it also stands for boldness, willfulness and an exceptional ability to dream. A very Gothenburg building, says Mark Isitt.

Blink … there it is again … blink … and again … blink … and again … blink … I'm at home on Marstrand and go out on the balcony with my binoculars and … blink … a tiny flash of light … blink … probably a lighthouse … blink … but the light comes from far away … wink … beyond the rocky outcrops and clay valleys and farmland … wink … all the way from Hisingen … wink … could it be … wink … no, well … wink … yes, damn, it is!

Karlatornet is 246 meters high. That's 56 meters higher than the Turning Torso. 74 floors compared to 54. And Karlatornet, you know, it also twists, and not just once, but four times, because Karlatornet is four giant skyscrapers in one, yes, yes, yes, joined together with zippers.

Karlatornet is the tallest building in the Nordic region. Taller than all the others. In good old Göteboooeeeeeeööööhh … actually on Hisingen! Or "Gothenburg's kitchen garden" as our parents used to say … or "the island" … or as the district is sung at football matches today, "Hisingen, here we set your car on fire, throw stones sometimes, and if you dare to come here you'll get a big beating!"

An odd location to say the least. As crazy an idea as, say, building a mega–sized car battery plant in tiny Skellefteå. And so it went: during the almost 20 years that Ola Serneke has nurtured his high–flying dreams, the company name has changed here and there, the construction project has had three different partners, Serneke himself has been forced out of the CEO position and in January this year the entire construction company went bankrupt.

If Karlatornet were an economic barometer—which is how we often read skyscrapers—it would be a pit.

[…]

Although, of course, this is an American architectural firm that has done better in other parts of the world: Burj Khalifa in Dubai (828 meters/163 floors); Lever House in Manhattan (94 meters/22 floors); Sears Tower in Chicago (442 meters/108 floors).

Meanwhile, that festive serpentine shape, if it had been built in New York today, would certainly match many of the nearly 100 new spires that have popped up there in the last ten years (apart from appearing dwarfed, of course).

[…]

And the outgoing city architect Björn Siesjö—"Bjårn Schejve" as SOM's chief architect Peter Jackson puts it—who I assume has been the one who rolled out the maps and pinpointed the plot and saw the big connections and thus generated this redemptive cross–connection.

Bravo!

But as you get closer, the picture becomes more nuanced. Already when I stand on Kämpebron, I am annoyed that the wasp waist from the original proposal is gone. It has been replaced by … a car ring. The tower has been gutted. And this despite the fact that the hourglass shape certainly decided in SOM's favor (they competed against starchitects such as Zaha Hadid, Manuelle Gautrand and our own Gert Wingårdh).

Serneke must have thought that Jessica Rabbit was too expensive and scrapped the truss that would have served as a corset and instead chose to extend the same thick square column all the way up to the top floor, to the 74th.

The result is not nearly as sexy as it was intended. Especially as they have now also chosen to unzip all the way up, like the worst nun, skipping that enticing gap where swelling glass terraces across the entire width of the house, green and splendid, were supposed to be exposed. Now it's the same sad–looking pots stacked on top of each other from here to hell. Chilling.

[…]

Serneke's loan–financed pride blooms in all its "splendor". The canopy over the residential entrance is already rusty and, by the way, why doesn't the gate face south and the sun and Lindholmsallén where it could have livened up—on the so-called entrance square there are no shops, no restaurants, not even a nail salon.

Instead, the 1200 residents are sneaked out to the side, stepping almost straight into a pit (a few years ago, two other scrapes were started here but today there are weeds growing out of the gravel piles). Which in itself is better than the hotel guests who are dumped at the back, in the north wind, the turbulence is cyclonic, in the fumes from—aaaahhh!—an adjacent garbage collection facility: Welcome to Gothenburg!

It's a fuzzy finish that is fortunately salvaged somewhat on the inside. The interior designers responsible are SOM. Well, not SOM as in Skidmore Owings & Merrill but SOM as in Gothenburg's Semrén and Månsson. They have designed lots of similar interiors and therefore the hotel looks like most hotels do—the two–story foyer is echoing empty, except for a teenager in a black hoodie who seems to be hiding in the forest of plastic figs.

Then the lobby for the residents—of which Ola Serneke is one, he owns the four-story penthouse, bought it for 66 million—is done with greater fervor. It has a charming Park Avenue air, with walnut walls, chrome art deco lamps, and a fireplace in silver–gray terrazzo stone that could have graced the facade as well, which would have given it more life. There is a reception, a cinema room with olive green velvet armchairs that everyone in the house can book, a dog wash, a "library" (without a single book) and, of course, one of West Sweden's largest mailrooms.

If you want to go up to the viewing platform, there are five elevators. In 28 seconds, they take you 220 meters in the air, up to floor 69. The platform hangs like a glazed cube on the south facade. Creepy! And once it opens to the public, hopefully next summer—admission will be around 250 SEK—you'll be able to stand here with all of Gothenburg on your bare feet—no shoes allowed, the glass floor is apparently "a bit fragile".

[…]

So why?

Why invest an astronomical 5.6 billion (four astronomical billion more than Turning Torso)?

Why risk your entire reputation, as Ola Serneke did?

Well, probably because it is possible.

To show that it is actually possible.

An attitude that is of course easy to make fun of—"Who does that Serneke think he is? Why is he building monuments to himself?"—but which is hard not to be attracted to.

Karlatornet may represent hubris, bankruptcy, missed deadlines and broken budgets. But it also stands for feistiness, willfulness, damn good humor and an exceptional ability to dream.

A very Gothenburg building, in other words.

Source:  GöteborgsPosten