Malmö in Transition: Documenting the Architectural Region

Abstract

This chapter analyses a group of film documentaries by the Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten that captures and participates in the changing regioscape of the Øresund. Each film focuses on the construction (and dismantling) of a particular architectural subject: the Øresund bridge, the Turning Torso skyscraper, and the old Kockums shipbuilding crane. I posit that the documentaries of architectural and social narratives register particular fractures in the planned visions of the region. The chapter provides close readings of the films, focusing on the way spatial, architectural, and social changes are imagined and the way particular narratives are generated by the filmmaker’s interpretation of the region. The documentaries capture the wider political, social, and ideological conflicts and confluences of the region at the time of its birth, providing alternative narratives to the official regional rhetoric. The films are Gå på vatten (Walking on Water, 2000), Bye Bye Malmö (2002), and Sossen, arkitekten, och det skruvade huset (The Socialist, The Architect, and the Twisted Tower, 2005). I argue that the three films form an ‘Øresund trilogy’ when viewed in light of each other, presenting multiple layers of meaning and signification.