Have finally had a chance to visit Kiruna, the city that’s being moved so it doesn’t fall into a mine. I am utterly giddy, but also bummed that we’re a few weeks too early for the big move of the old church, which will be moved on rails, 5km away, all in one piece next month 🤯🤯🤯
Moving a whole city is an astonishing engineering and architectural endeavor. If only we could put as much effort into peace and tolerance all around the world.
They’ve already hoisted it onto the girders and even that is a thrill to see. It’s a huge, beautiful wooden church from 1907, and I can’t wait to come back and see inside
I took a million pics of both the old and new town, and I’ll put them on insta later because now we’re off to check out Esrange, the rocket launching station, but I feel GUILTY that I’m not bringing @drspacejunk.bsky.social
A lot of the old city was apparently designed by a Spanish architect, without much consideration for the climate, but the new city is designed with harsh weather in mind. Even the streets are at an angle so that they don’t become wind tunnels. Hard to appreciate on a day with Spanish weather!
I’m curious to see what happens over the next few years, as the last things are moved from the old city and more construction is finished, but everything is so intentional, and it seems unusually participatory, so it feels quite hopeful. The architecture is quite fun, too!
Dumped a bunch of pics of Kiruna old town and new town into some insta posts. It’s hard to convey the scale of the mine, or the contrast of a 30C day in the Arctic circle with snow covered mountains in the distance www.instagram.com/p/DMQgPMgMs1... www.instagram.com/p/DMQibIXs35...
You should feel guilty! How I'd love to see it with you! (But do please post some pics) ♥️♥️♥️
"There goes the neighborhood."