White arkitekter
White is one of Scandinavia’s largest architectural practices and has in recent years become known for large timber buildings such as the Sara Cultural Centre in Skellefteå. The firm works extensively on sustainability and urban development.
White Arkitekter was founded in 1951 in Gothenburg by the architect Sidney White. The practice grew during the great post-war building boom, when schools, hospitals and housing estates were built all over Sweden, and became one of the country’s largest architectural firms. It is owned by its employees, a form of ownership that has shaped its culture and way of working. White works in interdisciplinary teams in which architects, landscape architects, interior architects, urban planners and specialists in sustainability and research collaborate. The firm has offices in many Swedish towns and has also been active in Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom. It has a long tradition of working on public buildings, healthcare, education and planning.
White’s best-known works include the Stockholm Waterfront congress centre on Klara sjö and the Väven cultural centre in Umeå, designed with Snøhetta. The firm has worked on relocating the centre of Kiruna as a result of the mine’s expansion, with a long-term plan for moving the town in stages. The Sara Cultural Centre in Skellefteå, opened in 2021, is one of the world’s tallest buildings with a timber frame, housing a theatre, library, art gallery and hotel in a single building where glulam and cross-laminated timber also carry the high-rise section. The firm works extensively on social and ecological sustainability and on research into materials, energy and how architecture can help reduce carbon emissions.
White has become one of the clearest examples of the Nordic turn towards sustainable architecture and timber construction, which attracted great international interest in the 2010s and 2020s. The Sara Cultural Centre has drawn attention worldwide and shows how Sweden’s forestry tradition can take a modern, large-scale form, and the project has helped change perceptions of timber as a material for large public buildings. The firm has also been influential in the discussion of democratic planning and public consultation in urban development. Through its ownership and way of working, White stands for a collective architectural culture, in contrast to the idea of the lone star architect that dominated much of the debate around the turn of the millennium.