THE SWINGING CITY OF ANDALSNES

Brilliant Swedish architecture team Jagnefalt Milton has proposed a solution to the master plan of the Norwegian town Åndalsnes called The Swinging City. The firm proposed to have buildings, hotels, and homes rolling through the city on it's existing railroad system."We are really happy that the jury took our proposal serious, its not only a good proposal which we are very proud of, it ?s also fully doable," says Carl Jägnefält one of the two founders of Jägnefält Milton.

Andalsnes held the competition in search for a conceptual master plan that can be brought to life, in effort to take it's current architecture (a "sober" post war rebuild) and revitalize the town into a innovative attraction for people to come from all over the world to experience. The Swinging City provides this sort of wow effect that the council is looking for. The jury on the council explained:

"Rather than proposing infills in the dissolved city blocks or new piers and promenades along the fjord, the proposers have chosen to focus on the opportunities that lies in allowing a single item form the basis for a spatial and programmatic interventions in the most important and most public zones of Åndalsnes. The proposer has seen the importance of the railway for the development of the city and taken this element and created a new future for the city. The railroads fundamen- tal contradiction between the permanence of the tracks and the mobility and flexibility of the wagons is playfully and elegantly exploited in the planning proposal."

We think this is totally great! We would love to hop into one of these carts and get out and ride the rails of Norway. On a conceptual level, this would be worth the stop, although we can't help but question how realistic this proposal would be as a long term investment into the town.

(Photographs courtesy of jagnefaltmilton.com)