Vällingby Centre
Vällingby was conceived as an ABC town – work, housing, centre (arbete, bostad, centrum) – around a new underground station. The centre, with its square, shops, cinema and church, was built in brick and concrete with playful details. Town planners from all over the world came to study the Swedish suburb.
Stockholm grew rapidly after the Second World War, and the city had bought large areas of land west of the inner city. The City Planning Office, headed by Sven Markelius, planned a new suburb around the underground line that was to be extended. The idea was that the suburb should not merely be a dormitory town but an ABC town, where work, housing and centre were close to one another. Vällingby Centre was designed by the architectural firm Backström & Reinius and was inaugurated in November 1954 amid great attention. The centre was built on top of the underground with a concrete frame and façades of brick and render. The city wanted to show that the Swedish folkhem could offer a good life with services, culture and nature within walking distance of home.
The centre is a car-free pedestrian precinct with the square at its heart. The square’s paving is laid in a pattern of circles and curves, which enlivens the surface and shows where to walk. Around the square are shops, a bank, a library and the Fontänen cinema, and the façades have playful details, neon signs and strong colours. The underground station lies beneath the square, so that passengers emerge directly into the centre. The church, designed by Peter Celsing, stands a little way off. Around the centre lie the neighbourhoods with point blocks and slab blocks in a green park, and further out terraced houses and detached houses. Cars are routed around the area, and footpaths and bridges separate pedestrians from traffic. The whole plan follows the landscape and its contours.
Vällingby became internationally famous, and town planners from many countries travelled to Stockholm to see the new suburb. It was followed by Farsta and other centres in the Stockholm area, but the idea that each suburb should have its own workplaces was only partly realised, and many people commuted to the inner city all the same. In the 2000s the centre was rebuilt and parts of it were covered with glass roofs to cope with competition from new shopping centres. Vällingby is today classed as a cultural environment of national interest, and many of the 1950s details, such as the pattern of the square and the old signs, have been preserved. The suburb is one of the clearest examples of the town planning of the Swedish welfare state and of how the folkhem’s ideas of community and services could take shape.