Parks around the Towers: Landscape as Resource in the Urban Periphery from the Record Years to the Future

Reversing a famous functionalist formulation – from “towers in the park” to “parks around the towers” – this project studies the construction, use, and transformation of outdoor spaces created near multifamily housing during the Swedish Record Years (1961-1975), when 1.4 million dwelling units were built and discourses of nature emphasized the “rational.” Negative media attention has cast a long shadow. Architects and planners involved are often asked to develop environmentally and socially sustainable solutions, but the green, open, and public spaces around the housing have typically not been the focus of these efforts. 

The project has two main aims: 1. To uncover how local residents have transformed landscapes since their construction, such as new ecosystems and unplanned spatial practices, and the role that social change has played. 2. To probe the shaping and reshaping of Record Year outdoor areas in original plans and in official renovations by architects and planners, and whose spatial interests are prioritized in the context of increased urbanization across intersectional questions of ethnic, national, and gender identity.

By redefining late modernist landscapes – from background to foreground – this project creates a fertile ground to view the outdoor spaces of the Record Years as resources to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future. If centers and suburbs may be increasingly considered in ecological and social symbiosis, this interdisciplinary study investigates open, green, and public spaces as critical components of urbanization: the spaces where public life and new social and environmental demands intersect.

Funded by Formas

Project leader: Jennifer Mack

Additional persons involved: Chero Eliassi (PhD student)