Malmö, Sweden

I had never really considered Sweden as a holiday destination. I mean there have been some pretty compelling reasons for going; Ace of Base, ABBA, Roxette, saunas and certain erotic movies, but I had always been put off by the cost and the fact that no one seems to be going there. However, a few days ago the pull of dirt cheap flights, a world class exhibition and the incessant nagging of my girlfriend that I spent 9 months a year running all over the world whilst she is stuck in Cambridge was too much for me and I grabbed my bag and jumped on the next flight. I was pleasantly surprised and I am sure you will be too.

Activities

The main reason for visiting Malmö at the moment is to visit the Bo01, City of Tomorrow and European Housing Fair and Exhibition which runs to Sept 2001. The exhibition is based on the general theme of human sustainability and covers homelessness, building materials and the role of ecology and ecological practises on society. It's an eclectic mix which perhaps only the Swedes would consider and successfully stage.

The key ideas of the exhibition are how we relate together and it tries to bring together current ideas on loneliness, ethnic and economic segregation to give a new and challenging perception of our crazy world. I am not a professional art critic, but I do love art and this was perhaps one of the most profoundly disturbing and moving exhibitions I have seen for some years (despite the fact after reading their press release I was looking forward to a day running around Sweden being chased by a huge bouncy ball and yelling, 'I am a man, I am not a number' or, 'who is number 1?').

According to their marketing blurb:

The City of Tomorrow will be one of Europe's largest housing exhibitions ever. It will be a world-class spectacle and an ecological spearhead for the new millennium. The target is one million visitors.

Bo01, City of Tomorrow consists of two parts - a permanent housing area and an
exhibition site. The whole expanse covers about 30 hectares and is situated on the best site in Malmö by Ribersborg on the Western Harbour with views of ×resund bridge and Copenhagen. Here about 800 new apartments are being built on the water's edge, with quay promenades, marina and parks.

The theme of Bo01 is the City of Tomorrow in an ecologically sustainable information and welfare community. Beauty and stimulation are keywords in the new society with human beings at its centre.

Don't you just love the Swedes and their endearing use of English?

The exhibition is split into a number of loosely collected themes of ecology, sustainability and homelessness (this exhibition alone is worth the airfare). Three vision based exhibitions discuss life in the city of tomorrow (disappointingly, it's not all free beer and lap dancers - well, not according to the morose bunch of artists who prepared the exhibition). The secret gardens explore the role of greenery in the city of tomorrow whilst the European Housing exhibition tries to show how in a few years time we all will be living next to a pair of buxom Dutch lesbians and a French undertaker.

Vision

Vision is the exhibition dealing with the common issues of homelessness, identity and the way we live together in society. Most of it, I have to admit, was a little avant guarde and off the wall for my own puritanical tastes but there were some bits which really hit home - like the small Russian style room with the incessant monologue of why you should feel guilty (very poignant). The exhibition is split into three sections: the house (check out the aptly named Golden Shower), year one and homelessness. Homelessness focuses on the transient state will all live in today.

The Secret Gardens

The exhibition blurb says that:

Interest in gardens is enormous at the moment. Sales of garden publications are still soaring even after many years of climbing figures. Garden exhibitions are consequently amongst the biggest public attractions of our time. This trend is well worth discussing. Many people think that the garden is a given, essential counterbalance in our increasingly stressed lives. Will the interest in gardens continue to grow? Is the art of gardens drawing ever closer to nature or is there already a backlash on its way?

We asked landscape architects, architects, artists and garden designers from Sweden, Europe and the USA to display how gardens of the future may express existence, passion, illusion and evolution. Each designer had as a starting point an imaginary square, 20x20 metres, in the three-metre high Salix wood. We wanted to create an exhibition with eleven interpretations of tomorrow's paradise, replacing the wall with the energy wood which creates the walls enclosing each garden. An inspiring expression is the beautiful Italian giardino segredo, the secret garden, a concept from the renaissance. It was common that these wall- or hedge enclosed outdoor spaces were filled with beautifully scented aromatic herbs and flowers, a delightful retreat for a much-needed private life.

There are 10 gardens in the exhibition and each one focuses on a particular theme. Some, to my untrained eye, looked like a mass of weeds, whilst others challenged my views of design and land use in a gentle, though provoking, way. My favourite was the third one. As a central piece this has a sculptured wood deck and a sign asking people to interact with the environment by putting their feet in the water and enjoying the tactile feel of the wood. I am embarrassed to say that I took the interaction a bit too seriously and a few minutes after sitting down on the wooden deck fell into a deep and noisy slumber. This wouldn't have been bad if I hadn't combined this with an attack of flatulence and a bad case of drooling.

The European housing exhibition

This turned out to be a bit of a non-starter as most of the houses were still being built (I guess the French must have got the contract and were too busy off burning British lamb to complete the job on time), but it was a good opportunity to wander around a Scandinavian building site. It looked liked the houses would be finished some time around September when the exhibition closes.

Interior Designs

This is a semi-permanent exhibition that attempts to show how life can be lived in an ecologically friendly environment. It was, to be honest, not terribly interesting as most of the ideas used were a little stale but I did pick up some interesting ideas for the future Blazdell residence. Worth a quick look.

Other places to visit

Malmöhus

Malmöhusvagen

This 15^th century castle is now a museum with a series of furnished interiors from Renaissance to art nouveau. The grounds provide lovely spots for picnics and walks.

Open daily, June-Aug 10am-4pm, Sept-May noon-4pm. Admission: 40kr.

St Petri Church

Göran Olsgatan

This14^th century church is splendidly Gothic outside and pleasantly airy inside. Most of the murals were destroyed in the Reformation, but a side chapel has a preserved vaulted ceiling depicting New Testament figures.

Open: Mon-Fri 8am-6pm, Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 10am-6pm; free

×resund Bridge

For engineers the ×resund bridge is worth seeing purely for the magnificent feat of engineering (I was on the Danish side when it was first being built and even then it was an incredible project). At 6 am on August 14, 1999 the final section of the ×resund bridge was placed in position. Six hours later, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark met on the bridge to mark the fact that Denmark and Sweden were linked once more - 7,000 years after the Ice Age when they were landlocked. More importantly, the bridge opened a new world of back packing possibilities and allows people visiting Malmo to fly to Copenhagen airport (where the flights are often cheaper) and use the rapid high speed connection right into the town centre of Malmo.

10 Reasons for Going

1. The Bo01 exhibition is extremely thought provoking and well worth a gander.
   
2. You can get cheap flights from the UK.
   
3. You might bump into Roxette.
   
4. Swedish food is surprisingly appetising and not too expensive.
   
5. Swedish home movies...or so I am told.
   
6. Everyone speaks better English than you.
   
7. It's clean - almost to the point of being anally retentive - e.g.: my hotel in Malmo 'this hotel has been especially cleaned for those who may suffer from allergies'.
   
8. Malmo gets an average 17.5 hours of sun per day in summer.
   
9. Saunas!!!
   
10. It's not packed with tourists and the people are genuinely friendly.
    

Links

1. Who could ever forget the massive contribution Roxette have made to cultural understanding, world peace and universal harmony.

2. ABBA - Sweden's greatest cultural ambassadors and doyens of a million dance floors.

3. Ace of Base - each summer they wheel themselves out of retirement to drop another essential summer tune which drives everyone crazy. But we still love them, don't we?

4. Photos of naughty Swedes?

5. An FAQ on Scandinavia.

Things you might never have guessed

Sweden revealed in 1997 that it had sterilised about 63,000 people between 1935 and 1975, many against their will, as part of a campaign to improve racial purity in the Nordic nation.

A former local authority employee in Sweden who claimed the costs for prostitutes and champagne on expenses lost an appeal against a community service order, Sweden's TT news agency said. While on trips abroad with a travel agent to plan conferences for the City of Malmo's leisure department, he visited nightclubs, where he bought services from prostitutes and ordered champagne. The court found Malmo had been billed SEK (Swedish kronas) 280,000 (USD 27,820) too much as a result.
The 54-year old man, who was not named, must perform 180 hours community service after being found guilty of a serious breach of faith toward his employer, the Malmo appeals court ruled.