Kiruna - The northern Swedish city of Kiruna is to be rebuilt a few kilometres further east by 2019. An ore mine needs the space, but there has hardly been any protest. The mine operator is offering the residents generous compensation, while the new Kiruna will reportedly be more attractive.
Mining city Kiruna, which has 20,000 inhabitants, is ugly. It is a bleak place 145 kilometres north of the polar circle. Kiruna’s true value lies under the earth’s surface. At a depth of 1,365 metres is the largest underground ore mine in the world. By 2019, Kiruna will migrate east to make way for iron ore mining.
Because holes and crevices can cause the earth to sag, the city must be torn down and rebuilt a few kilometres away. State mining company Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB) shared the news with the municipality in a letter at the end of 2003. If the residents hadn’t agreed, the pit would have had to close to avoid any protest or argument.
Without the ore, which has been extracted since 1900, Kiruna would not exist. There is nothing around it. 116 years ago, nobody could have known that in the future, the city would lie too close to the edge of the pit. Thanks to the mine, Kiruna has no unemployment today.
The whole centre – including 3,000 single-family homes and everything else that makes up a city – will now be razed. Only the old church and a few other historic buildings will be relocated to the new city centre. “We don’t know what it will all cost,” said architect Mikael Stenqvist. “But the mining company has the money for it. It makes up 2 per cent of Sweden’s total gross domestic product.”
Stenqvist’s architecture office White won the tender, because it promised to make the new Kiruna more attractive and sustainable. “The new Kiruna will offer more leisure activities: cinemas, shops, culture, swimming pools, football fields. Access to nature and skiing will be easier,” commented Stenqvist.
