Model Archive – A Witness to the City

Model Archive – A Witness to the City is an interdisciplinary anthology that explores urban design and planning through the collection of models kept at the City Planning Department of Stockholm. The anthology elaborates on questions posed in the film The Model Archive by artist Malin Pettersson Öberg, and from the exhibition of the same name curated by Mikaela Steby Stenfalk at ArkDes – Sweden’s National Centre for Architecture and Design.

In essays and conversations, a dozen authors and dialogue partners reflect on the relationship between model and city, complexities of the urban planning process, housing issues, and more. Who builds the city and for whom? How does the shape of the city relate to the shape of its inhabitants’ lives? And can the archive’s models serve as tools for memory and historiography, as well as for reflecting and challenging the city we now have?

This anthology is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Malin Pettersson Öberg and Mikaela Steby Stenfalk.