Future Kiruna - The Swedish Town that is Relocating Building by Building

2013, plans were unveiled that would see a town in the far north of sweden relocated building by building. kiruna, home to the world’s largest iron ore mine, had become a victim of its own success. while it’s estimated that an equivalent of six eiffel towers worth of ore is extracted from the mine each day, consequential land deformation on the town’s western border had begun to subsume it, putting residents at risk. as a result, an international competition was launched to relocate kiruna in phases over a 20-year period. the winning entry, drawn up by white arkitekter working with ghilardi + hellsten, looked a century into the future to envision a sustainable city with a diverse economy.
The difficult part in moving a city is to preserve its sense of belonging, the history and the soul of the community,’ alexandra hagen, white arkitekter’s CEO, tells designboom. ‘it is easy to build a space or a building, but the real challenge is to preserve the thriving soul that makes a community.’ although two thirds of kiruna’s population depends on the mine for employment, the city has recently experienced population growth alongside an increase in tourism.
To develop the project, the architects involved kiruna’s 20,000 citizens - allowing them to take a prominent role in the masterplan. ‘our approach to put the citizens of kiruna first in this project is important,’ hagen continues. ‘we’ve spent a lot of time interviewing and listening to them. the city of kiruna exists because of the mine and the mining cannot continue if the city is not moved. the citizens of kiruna understand this but at the same time it’s still difficult for them as homes and spaces where memories have been made are being demolished to keep kiruna alive for the future.’

[@dpo1768]

I heard about this a while ago and I think it is one of the most underrated projects in the world! Thanks for sharing 😁

[@Francessxo]

I randomly saw this place in Google Maps at 2 in the morning and this place is very beautiful and it looks so peaceful!

[@filippobello6263]

Cool project!!

[@davidsheffied]

Yay - visiting Kira in Feb 2022. Not been for nearly 20 years.

[@2760db]

How was it?

[@JoeTheJazzMan]

i'm a kiruna resident that moved into one of the new buildings and i can say the new city already looks awesome :)

[@CitiesoftheFuture]

Amazing! Thanks for Sharing :)

[@domitravel795]

Why is it so hard to find footages from the new Kiruna or how it will look like and so on. I live on Öland but we plan to move and Kiruna is a possible option.

[@JoeTheJazzMan]

@@domitravel795 not much has been built here like there are no stores open in new kiruna maybe when its all done there will be some videos idk lol

[@domitravel795]

@@JoeTheJazzMan aww ok, thank you for the info, any idea when the new city will be ready?

[@JoeTheJazzMan]

@@domitravel795 most of it will be done in around a year i think tbh i have no clue lol

[@fortressfrazze3777]

Good at least it is a young town and not have buildings like several hundred years old. Of course hard for many but in the end it probably will beccome great. And without the mine there should be even harder for the population.

[@Rainaman-]

This is insane.

[@belmordok3661]

So, in other words, mining companies have assured they'll have the materials which will benefit their business (read: profit) while the architects will have at least 30 years assured work and money income, but which will extend to more than a 100 years in the future, while the regular people would get the newer infrastructure which is a bit further from the mines and thus there shouldn't be any cave ins. Interesting

[@christinaandersen2204]

Can it really pay of to do this? Can they be sure that there will be enogh money in the mine future compared to the cost of moving the city..?

[@cassie4705]

Europe is heavily dependent on ore from sweden as it is very pure, the purest in Europe i believe!

[@DavidSGrop]

The cost is only about half of the mining company's yearly revenue, they'll make it all back pretty quick.

[@kajsakarlsson9553]

What i like the most when i'm visiting Kiruna is all the colours of the houses everywhere. I am afraid thet will disappear and everything will be gray and white like the rest of the world..

[@pawezielinski7201]

Byłem.Wiedziałem że są tam metale ziem rzadkich.Żelazo jest to I wszystko jest.

[@ArishBaratsson]

i live in Kiruna

[@CitiesoftheFuture]

And what do you think of the project? How is it going?

[@ArishBaratsson]

@@CitiesoftheFuture İ think it is very beautiful and good project. Some objects were put into operation. But construction continues, there is still much to be done.

[@Rainaman-]

The place feels bit depressing even at summer, how do you cope?

[@HejaSverige]

@@Rainaman- No not at all! It’s nice

[@j.lindback]

@@Rainaman- We've got 24 hours of daylight in the summer, so how could it be depressing...? However the polar night in December (when the sun doesn't rise) is a tough one.

[@jeb64]

I'm quite sure that not a single one of those talking on the video was from Kiruna, or even the north of Sweden, a little interesting I think..

[@pedrothewise2584]

very misleading. iron ore plus rare earth minerals for northvolts battery cell factory.

[@patrikbergqvist6988]

What ? You cant move the souls i Africa but in sweden you can ?

[@mapgar1479]

Just leave the iron in the ground. There is no need to sacrifice a historic city just to make profits. Reminds me a little about the town of Centralia Pennsylvania.

[@mynge]

Well, then the people of Kiruna don’t have jobs...

[@AlexanderCorinUC79vSK]

When 20% of the town works in the mines, and the rest of the jobs only exist as supportive jobs (restaurants, clothing stores, food markets etc) the entire town would basically disappear. The iron also stands for 90% of the EUs total iron ore, removing 90% of a whole continents supply product would mess up countries really fast.

[@kumardickshit1530]

Its the least historical city in sweden a city of concrete there is no reason to save anything

[@felixbergfors]

The mine was there before the city 🙂 soo the city has to move simple as that the mine has done nothing wrong mabe they shouldnt have build a city over it 👍🏻

[@proteus03]

@@kumardickshit1530 Not quite true, there are some pretty wooden houses in the center area and the interesting wooden church of course. But the only reason for the existing city of Kiruna is the iron ore mine itself.

[@danielsouza763]

L

[@sirgabriel9085]

It takes Sweden a hundred years to build a village. China is building an entire city in a year.

[@Lori79Butterfly]

China has serious human rights abuses & entirely empty cities. I don’t care what communist China can do given their dubious ways of accomplishing things. Sweden is a democracy!

[@ihatestairsEXTERMINATE]

I sverige göra vi inte så snabb. Tar en fika.

[@sirgabriel9085]

@@ihatestairsEXTERMINATE Pont ezért fog titeket utolérni a világ.

[@perberger809]

Chinese buildings fall apart after a year. I'm not even kidding.

[@j.lindback]

Uhm, what? Who said it took 100 years to build Kiruna? They say Kiruna has been around for 100 years, not that it took 100 years to build it!