Bonniers Konsthall

Johan Celsing’s architecture is often considered exclusive. And this may very well be true of both Nobel Forum as well as Millesgården. The man is a palace architect for heaven’s sake, and is now designing for the Bonnier family (”enlarging the father house”, as the family says).  It can hardly get more sophisticated than that.
But in the case of Bonniers Konsthall, it seems as though Johan Celsing has relished throwing off his coat and tails and becoming more direct. If several of his earlier buildings are well-produced P1 architecture, this project is more like a bustling back street, primarily due to its location.

"The areas surrounding Millesgården and Nobel Forum were very homogenous and unified. This area, in contrast is very heterogeneous, with the lowered Atlas area, the apartment buildings of the 70’s, the rail yards, and the twisting street," Johan Celsing explains.

When I meet Johan Celsing, he frequently uses the word ”trivial”, and describes without hesitation, the art venue as ”sloppy”, with its trivial materials, such as glass and aluminium, its basic structure resembling that of a car showroom, and its generalness.
"In any other city, this building wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, but everyone’s so damn careful here," says Johan Celsing.
It’s still puzzling to him how the building could be so controversial in the city.

"It’s nothing to get worked up about. He then quotes Dolly Parton: ”You can’t imagine what it costs to look this cheap”."

Both of the houses I first associate with Bonniers Konsthall are fittingly located in the ”sloppy” city of Malmö. One of them is the Malmö Art Museum. It is from here that Bonniers Konsthall seems to have borrowed the generalness, the playfulness, and the lighting ”general but with strong character”, as Johan Celsing describes it. The other one is, more by pure chance, the new School of Teacher Education in Malmö’s west harbour. It has, as Bonniers Konsthall, an undulating façade, but what the two buildings mainly have in common is that they redefine a section of the city. Perhaps inhabit is the wrong word, but they bring the city inside, and elucidate it. The city stretches itself out to its limits, picking up on something vital in the process.
What is appealing is that Bonniers Konsthall does all this without trying to rearrange its surroundings. In other words, it doesn’t exactly announce itself with a fanfare.
Here, by the railroad tracks under the brick skyscraper of the Bonnier House, in a city that always does its best to sweep away anything considered “broken”, it feels like a privilege to stand gazing over rail yards that will soon be, to use a modern urban development term, ”healed” with a decking over. This city simply doesn’t have the stomach for sores.
Johan Celsing sees the building as a disarming gesture, welcoming the city inside, and quotes Pontus Hultén who hoped that Moderna Museet would be characterised by the vitality of the street and workshop possibilities. Bonniers Konsthall might come to live its life as a contrast to Moderna Museet. It is as with concert venues in Stockholm; there is almost always a lack of mid-size locales for music, bridging the gap between the large arenas and the small clubs.

It is easy to become somewhat solemn when talking and writing about architecture. It is therefore interesting that the second simile delivered by Johan Celsing, after the Dolly Parton one, includes the quality-wise very debatable toy robot, the Transformer.
At this point we have stepped inside. This is where the house is a Transformer that could be a showroom, but that with a few simple, literally manual adjustments could become a good or evil robot, or an airplane.
One of the main topics of discussion as the house came into being was the degree of transparency. One can still see straight through the building from the street outside, which is an appealing discovery, but no one’s interested in an aquarium as an art venue.

"I’m interested in buildings as forms, and the completely transparent becomes formless," says Johan Celsing.

The building’s wedge shape co-relates to the plot of land, and one is constantly aware of this while moving inside the building. As it continues inside, the wedge shape results in a skewed interior, remaining leftover bits, and few ideal rooms.

"There is always leftover space in a wedge-shaped building, and I thought it would be better to let it remain in its own right. There’s a certain nerve to that."

The architect cannot hide his delight as he pulls out wall after wall from concealed spaces within the walls and re-sculpts the house.

"The street is right outside. One could of course decide not to invite it inside, however, that would at best be enigmatic, but more likely dreary and rejecting."

That is why the house is so full of potential walls, half transparent blinds, darkening curtains, and small nooks and crannies, all sharing the same floor and ceiling “for those who feel like retreating to a smaller stage”, as Johan Celsing puts it. And all this as a counterweight to the transparency.
Architecturally speaking, however, the best room in the house is unalterable. It is a large cube with closed corners. The anchor of the building, so to speak. It feels like an enormous studio, with the light streaming in from 7.20 meters above. After walking through the unassuming entrance of the see-through building, and gazing at the railroad tracks with the yellow Arlanda Express and the ugly towers on the opposite side of the water, entering this sealed cube makes one gasp for air. It strikes me how effective the closed room becomes when one has inhaled, and almost overdosed on transparency.

Dan Hallemar

Dan Hallemar is a journalist and landscape architect. He writes regularly for the culture section of Expressen, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, and the magazine Arkitekten, mostly about urban development but also about anything that has to do with locations. Dan Hallemar is also a great admirer of melancholic sites.