In the Swedish city of Kiruna they are now used to it: buildings that drive through the streets. Every so often, movers use cranes to lift a house onto a trailer and then tow it to another part of the city.
Anna-Bella Rundquist knows that one day it will also happen to the wooden church, the icon of Kiruna. But Rundquist, the sacristan of the church, does not lose any sleep over this: she has seen it happen too often for that. She points to the foundations of the more than hundred-year-old building. “They put iron beams under it,” she explains. A matter of lifting and driving a few kilometers to the east.
There is a saying in Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost city: LK ger, LK tar. In other words: LK gives, LK takes. The two letters stand for the Swedish state-owned company LKAB, which operates Europe’s largest iron mine near Kiruna.
What LK gives, you can see in the east of the city. A completely new city center has sprung up there, including a modern library, city hall and shopping centers – all of which have officially opened just a few weeks ago. The center is designed according to the latest urban trends: winding pedestrian streets, buildings of a few floors close together, many shops and cafes. All paid for by the mining company.
What LK takes, you see in the west of Kiruna. The old center is dilapidated and abandoned. It will be demolished in the coming years: the area is now unsafe because of the mining that takes place under the city. The residential towers are empty, the city hotel is closed, and fences criss-cross the area. And weeds grow everywhere. Buildings that are considered special, such as the church and the old fire station, will be placed entirely a few kilometers away in the coming years.
The move will cost one billion euros and will be fully paid for by LKAB – and therefore by the Swedish state. It is an exceptional project for Europe. In recent history, an entire city center has never moved before. How do you do that? And what is it like for the inhabitants when the streets you’ve walked on all your life suddenly disappear?
Attached to the view
Jeweler Frederik Andersson is one of the last shopkeepers in the old part of Kiruna. If you ask him why he hasn’t moved yet, he has his answer ready: the view. From behind the counter of his shop, on a clear day, he can see the Kebnekaise – at over 2,000 meters the highest mountain in Sweden – eighty kilometers away. “I don’t have that in the new center.”
In Kiruna (18,000 inhabitants), the outsider can only marvel at the view of the gigantic mine, which can be seen in the distance almost everywhere from the old center: lights, trucks, endless freight trains and a gigantic artificial mountain. But the inhabitants have long overlooked this, and each and every one praise the natural beauty of Swedish Lapland.
Every night at half past two, a loud bang can be heard in Kiruna. LKAB then punches a new hole in the mine’s subterranean system. In the morning the poisonous fumes of the explosion have dissipated and the miners enter the subterranean complex with their huge excavators. They load several trains in one day, with a total of 85,000 tons of iron ore. They drive in a few hours to the ice-free port of Narvik in Norway, where the ore is transferred to ships that take it to steel mills elsewhere in Europe – including Tata Steel’s in IJmuiden.
‘We exist because of the mine’
It’s a lucrative machine that has been running that way for over 120 years – including during World War II, when Germany’s wartime economy depended on iron ore from neutral Sweden. The profit of state-owned company LKAB amounted to more than 1.2 billion euros in 2021. That money goes directly to the state treasury.
Without me there would have been no Kiruna. Here above the Arctic Circle, where there is no daylight for weeks in winter, almost only Sami reindeer herders braved the cold – until exploitation began in 1898. This happened under the leadership of Hjalmar Lundbohm, who is honored as a hero in the town. His old house has already been moved.
“We exist because of the mine,” says Anna-Bella Rundquist outside her church. About 2,000 residents of Kiruna work in the company. And so, she puts into words what many other residents also say, we have to accept the move.
It has been clear for almost twenty years that the old center is in a dangerous place. LKAB has to dig deeper and deeper to reach the iron ore, which changes the structure of the soil and increases the risk of subsidence. At the beginning of this century, LKAB reported that mining could only continue if the city center was relocated.
In any other city it would probably have caused a huge uproar, but not in Kiruna. Residents and the municipality swallowed the idea, and around 2012 LKAB called in the well-known Swedish architectural firm White. That designed a new center on the east side of the city. It has largely taken shape in recent years, the official opening was at the beginning of September. But it is far from finished. It is full of cranes and construction will continue for years to come. Meanwhile, the old center is gradually disappearing.
More room for culture
“The idea was: to design a good new center, we need to understand how the people of Kiruna feel about their city,” says Krister Lindstedt van White, chief designer of the new center.
Lindstedt went to live in Kiruna for two years and worked with anthropologists. Conversations showed that the inhabitants are very fond of nature and wilderness, and would like more space for culture and encounters. Many women are now leaving for study or work; they are less attracted to the mine than men, and it lacks facilities that make Kiruna ‘fun’, such as museums.
At the same time, the inhabitants turned out to be very fond of their old centre. Not necessarily because of the appearance of the buildings, but because of the emotional value. A seemingly run-of-the-mill burger joint like Empes has great sentimental value for many: there are memories of dates and hanging out with friends. Lindstedt: “So we wanted to take as much as possible from the old center.”
Now the new town hall, also a small art museum, has the wooden doorknobs of its predecessor. On the central square is also the clock tower of the old town hall. And in the central shopping street there is a neon sign with ‘center’ on it, which has served for decades in the old city center. Many buildings will follow in the coming years.
At first glance, Lindstedt’s intentions seem successful. On Saturday afternoon you will see many residents in the new center photographing the buildings. It’s beautiful, say two young mothers. Gunnel Tjäder, who sells local craft products, likes her new retail space much better than in the old center.
But if you talk to the residents longer, you will also hear about the loss. “Maybe I’ll get used to it in a few years,” says Helena Mattson. She has lived in Kiruna all her life, and like almost everyone else, starts about the view of nature from the old town. “If I could, I would still go to the old center for shopping.”
Historians’ reply
In the attic of a wooden building in the old town, Kenneth Johansson leafs through a photo album. “The railway hotel, that’s gone. The station itself is also gone. They have retained part of the old company hotel.”
There was never any real resistance in Kiruna to the move. But if there has been any rebuttal, it has come from Kenneth Johansson and Harald Ericson of the historical society.
The two pensioners came up with alternative plans, talked endlessly with LKAB and the municipality. They felt that many more buildings needed to be saved. Couldn’t the entire center be recreated at a different location? Johansson takes out an old newspaper article. “A survey we had organized showed that the residents wanted more buildings to be saved.”
It led to little. What they were promised was that they could extensively document all buildings in the old center at the expense of LKAB. That job is done, they are happy with that – but the frustration is not gone. Johansson: “I just don’t like it when they tear down my city.”
They suggest going for another walk. During that walk, through the deserted old city, they lovingly point out the wooden patterns in buildings that will be demolished. At a lawn, the two tell that the old town hall stood here. The 1958 building was listed, but its status was revoked and the building demolished. „money talk”, says Ericsson, rubbing his thumb and forefinger, making the gesture for money.
The entrance gate of the old building is still there, as a reminder. Like a painting, it precisely frames the view of the mine.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 28, 2022