ArkDes reopens

The new entrance into ArkDes from Exercisplan. Photo: Marco Cappelleti

On September 27, ArkDes welcomes you back following comprehensive renovation. The reopening of the museum’s historic entrance on Exercisplan invites you into a sequence of reconfigured spaces containing an ambitious programme of activities. Set to designs by Arrhov Frick and A.M., the museum reopens with seven exhibitions presenting a broad range of works of architecture and design spanning the 20th Century to today.

At the heart of this holistic reimagining of the museum’s visitor experience, a brand new display brings to light never-before-seen works from ArkDes’s collection of over four million objects. The programme of exhibitions also includes the first presentation of Designing Motherhood in Europe, an outdoor installation co-created by the collective MYCKET, and Power of Places — a prototype of one of the museum’s practice-based research initatives in Sweden. These projects foreground the spaces of the museum as an open platform to understand the influence and potential of architecture and design for society in the past, today, and into the future.

We warmly invite you to join us as ArkDes steps into a new chapter as a public space and a continuously evolving work-in-progress in the heart of Stockholm.

View of ArkDes Collection exhibition. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births

The inaugural temporary exhibition invites you on a journey through the evolution of design that influences the arc of human reproduction, from conception, pregnancy and birth, to postpartum experiences. The exhibition is curated by Juliana Barton, Zoë Greggs, Michelle Millar Fisher, Gabriella Nelson, and Amber Winick.

Detail of 'Designing Motherhood'. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

ArkDes Collection

Find a rotating selection of more than 500 original works—including architects such as Gunnar Asplund, Ralph Erskine, Malene Bjørn, Sigurd Lewerentz, and Hillevi Svedberg, among many others—from one of the world’s largest archives of 20th Century architecture and design. The exhibition features deep dives into the collections of architects Léonie Geisendorf and Abelardo Gonzalez. It also presents an installation by Joar Nango, made in collaboration with Katarina Spik Skum, Ken Are Bongo, Anders Sunna, Mary Ailonieida Sombán Mari, Tobias Aputsiaq Prytz and Arne Terje Sæther, that was first presented as part of Girjegumpi: The Sámi Architecture Library in 2023 at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia.

You are invited to spend time with curators from the museum with Unboxing — a shared discovery of the museum’s collection in which new materials are uncovered, organised, digitised, and discussed every day. Throughout the autumn, join thematic unboxings exploring The Swedish Home, The Lost Church, and A Floating Palace.

Abelardo Gonzales in ArkDes Collection. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

Detail of ArkDes Collection. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

Torget: Power of Places

Hosted at Torget, the museum’s new arrival space, Power of Places presents a 1:1 prototype for the development of the Nyhamnen district of Malmö. Created by Daniel Feldman, Anna Sokoloff, Sumayya Vally, and María José Arjona, this project is the result of an international call organised by ArkDes in collaboration with the City of Malmö.

'Power of Places' at Torget. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

Utsikten: MYCKET

Utsikten is an outdoor public space freely accessible all day, every day. Designed and facilitated by the art, architecture and design collective MYCKET, this place for play and young peoples’ imaginations has been under a process of co-creation since June 2024 and will remain accessible until the late Autumn.

MYCKET at Utsikten. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

A new visitor experience

Designed by Arrhov Frick, the reimagined visitor experience represents a comprehensive reshaping of the museum’s public spaces. Reusing elements of former exhibitions and environments, the museum now enables new ways of experiencing architecture and design while functioning as a flexible, sustainable foundation for the future. The graphic identity has been created by A.M. – a renewal of ArkDes’s online presence that has been designed in tandem with the museum’s graphic language on Skeppsholmen.

Unboxing in ArkDes Collection. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

Library and research centre reopens

Over the course of 2023 and 2024, the museum has undertaken a careful process to organise, catalogue and repack thousands of collection objects as they have moved to a new storage facility. This vast work is now complete, and in October ArkDes reopens its research service to scholars and curious minds who wish to dive into Swedish architecture and design history. The museum’s library reopens on September 27, publicly accessible as a place of study.

Joar Nango and collaborators in ArkDes Collection. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)

Looking ahead

Although the renewed ArkDes has been many years in the making, now is just the start of a new chapter for the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design. We understand design and architecture as forces to develop cities, communities, and culture at large – both through research and the collection that is cared for here, and by way of contemporary exhibition and events programming within Sweden and internationally. We are looking to the future and are excited to nurture this work-in-progress with you.

The new entrance to ArkDes. Photo: Marco Cappelletti (2024)