Kiruna City Hall (Kristallen)
Golden-latticed 2018 city hall at the heart of relocated Kiruna, housing the Kin art museum.
Kristallen was the first major building completed in Kiruna's new town centre, a centre made necessary because ground deformation from the LKAB iron ore mine is gradually consuming the original town. Henning Larsen Architects wrapped a circular inner drum in a lattice of weathering steel and gilded panels, so that the exterior catches the low Arctic light. Opened in 2018, it replaced Artur von Schmalensee's celebrated 1963 city hall, which was demolished after its parts had been recorded and salvaged.
The interior is conceived as a public street rather than an office block, with a top-lit central hall, galleries and meeting rooms that visitors can walk through. It holds the municipal art collection and is home to Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, one of the northernmost art museums in the world, which programmes work from across the Barents region and Sápmi. Beside the entrance stands the bell tower salvaged from the old city hall and re-erected here in 2017.
Highlights
- Gilded and weathering-steel lattice facade by Henning Larsen Architects
- Top-lit public hall running through the centre of the building
- Kin Museum of Contemporary Art on floors two to five
- Bror Marklund's bell tower, moved from the demolished 1963 city hall
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