Queering Brutalist Heritage: Transforming Patriarchal Coherence in Architectural Preservation—the Case of Folkparken, Lund (Sweden)

Abstract

Welcome to Folkparken in the university town of Lund, Sweden, a public park with a public brutalist building which currently serves as a meeting place for the local neighbourhood. In this chapter, we study the contested history of Folkparken through a queer theoretical framework based on the conceptual pair of “support” and “coherence”, exploring how spatial, social, and legislative resources are mobilised for preservation and transformation, and how this reiterates normative orders. After decades of being threatened by redevelopment and demolition, Folkparken was recently renovated and reinvigorated with new uses, such as a neighbourhood library. Advocacy work by a local community group mobilised cultural heritage values as the main argument for saving Folkparken, aiming to protect the legacy of the architect behind the building, Bengt Edman. We suggest that this selective focus on canonisation supports coherent patriarchal orders in architecture, in turn neglecting the history of Folkparken as a space for “queer” uses, interests, and desires, which we, in this text, define as those that do not cohere with norms and thus struggle to find a place in the city. Recognising these overlooked values offers an alternative outlook on brutalist architecture as cultural heritage, beyond a limited view on bold aesthetics or “heroic” architects.