The ABC City: Vällingby and the Idea of the Neighbourhood

An ABC city is a suburb planned for work, housing and centre in the same place, so that it does not become merely a dormitory town. The model is Vällingby in western Stockholm, whose centre was inaugurated in November 1954 around a new metro station. The idea builds on the neighbourhood unit, the post-war notion of a manageable district with school, shops and community hall within walking distance, but adds the workplaces. The words ABC city and neighbourhood unit are both in the glossary.

Facts

Pearls on a String

Stockholm grew rapidly after the Second World War, and the housing shortage was severe. The city had long bought land outside the toll gates, and when Spånga was incorporated in 1949 it got large areas to plan. The first metro line opened in 1950, and a new general plan, drawn up under the city planning director Sven Markelius, arranged the new suburbs like pearls on a string along the lines.

Each group of suburbs was to get a centre at the station. Closest to the station were to be the tall buildings, then lower slab blocks and farthest out terraced houses and villas, so that the density fell the further from the tracks one came. Cars were to be led round the residential areas, and footpaths and tunnels would let children walk to school without crossing a street.

From Neighbourhood to ABC

The neighbourhood idea came from England and the USA. The city was to be divided into manageable units with their own centre, school and services, as an antidote to the anonymity of the big city. In Sweden it became an ideal for the whole People's Home, and Årsta centre, inaugurated in 1953, was an early neighbourhood centre with a theatre, library and community house around a square.

Vällingby was to go a step further. The suburb was also to offer workplaces, so that people did not have to commute to the inner city. The A was as important as the B and C. In Råcksta, next to Vällingby, Vattenfall built its headquarters, an important part of the workplace idea. This is what distinguishes an ABC city from an ordinary suburb: it is conceived as a whole small town.

Vällingby Centre

Vällingby centre was designed by the architects Backström & Reinius for Svenska Bostäder and built in 1950–1954 on top of the metro, so that one comes up directly into the centre. The square is a car-free pedestrian route, and the paving is laid in a pattern of circles and curves that brings the surface to life and shows where to walk. Around the square were shops, a bank, a library, assembly rooms and the Fontänen cinema, with playful details, neon signs and strong colours. The church, designed by Peter Celsing, lies a little way off.

The inauguration in November 1954 was an event. Architects, planners and politicians from all over the world came to see the Swedish model, and the suburb received great attention in international journals.

Did It Work?

Only in part. Most of those who lived in Vällingby worked somewhere else, and those who worked there often lived in other districts, so commuting was heavy all the same. The experience was used in the next large suburb, Farsta, inaugurated in 1960, which was built to a greater degree for the car with large car parks. In the 1960s and 70s the moderate scale of the neighbourhood was replaced by the large areas of the Million Programme, but the idea of a centre at the station and traffic separated from pedestrians lived on; see the guide to the Million Programme.

As a town plan Vällingby nevertheless became a model. The centre was renewed in the 2000s and parts were covered with glass roofs, but the pattern of the square and the old signs were preserved. Today Vällingby is regarded as a cultural environment of national interest and one of the best Swedish suburbs of the post-war period.

Two Ways to Build a Whole City

At the same time as Vällingby was being planned, Le Corbusier built the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, 1947–1952, with the same aim but the opposite method. There housing, shops, a hotel, a nursery school and a gym were gathered in a single residential block for 1,600 people, a vertical city on pilotis. Vällingby instead spreads the city out in the landscape, with low buildings in parkland and a square in the middle. Both tried to give everyday life everything it needed within walking distance.

Look for the traces of the ABC city in your own town: a gathered square at the station, tall point blocks closest and lower buildings further out, footpaths on bridges and in tunnels and a town plan that follows the terrain. The period is described under the Record Years and in the guide to the architecture of the Record Years, and the longer history of town planning, from the Roman grid to the garden city, in the guide to town planning through history.

How to recognise an ABC city

Exercise

What do the letters in ABC city stand for?