Huset där allt händer
General Information
CuLTUREN – Where culture is blended with technique in an old industrial environment
CuLTUREN is a 4 200 square meter large building in Kopparlunden, at the centre of the Swedish town Västerås. Every year we have thousands of people attending our shows or visiting some of the 14 organisations housed in CuLTUREN. Our common goal is to offer the towns inhabitants a meeting place focusing on innovation and cultural actions. Experiences, participation and multitude are our key words.
Experiences may be film, music, theatre or dance. They may as well consist of food, art, coffee and education. Our arrangements often have a mixture of all those ingredients.
Participation may be many things. You may often find it possible to influence our offer, to be part of a creation or to participate in the discussion of the subject of a show.
Multitude is something we work for in many senses. Multitude of ethnical backgrounds, multitude of cultural expressions, and multitude of ages, all shall find something that fits them.
CuLTUREN is a Västerås’ square provided with a ceiling. At a good square things happens all the time though there is always a place for those whom whish to sit down, take a cup of coffee and look at people. The square is situated in the centre of Kopparlunden (the copper grove when translated to English).
Here culture is blended with technique in an old industrial environment. CuLTUREN is restored but still carries traces of a industrial place. Inside the house there is an amazing silence and inherent quietness. Because there are so many feelings related to culture it is important the surroundings are peaceful and clear.
The public art is chosen carefully. The first public piece you see is a neon house by Mikael Richter. It is on the ceiling and it is meant to function as an attraction to our building.
Come to Kopparlunden, look around inside the house and see what happens. One thing is for sure, something will happen!
CuLTUREN’s activities are commissioned by Västerås Committee of Culture and Leisure (nominated in Swedish: Kultur- och fritidsnämden i Västerås Stad). You may read more about the city of Västerås at www.vasteras.se
Culture is placed on the brickwalls
The area has many names: Nordiskan, Metall, Essem, Outokumpu and Kopparlunden. The area that had been closed for public is now more open than ever. It is a unique industrial area where culture, environment and technique are blended.
The history of Kopparlunden began about 100 years ago, in 1897. Electricity made its entry and ASEA needed new products. The Nordiska Metallaktiebolaget (meaning: Nordic Metal Stock Company in English), known as the million company among the towns people, was then constituted. Nordiska made semi-manufactured products in copper, brass and aluminium. There was wire-drawing, rolling-mill, metal press, foundry, mechanical shop and an ammunitions department. Broadly that is what Outukumpu is doing nowadays. Although, the ammunitions department ceased during the 1960’s.
1907 – The first consolidation, the Swedish Metal Mill Stock Company was constituted
1910 – Restructuring, the New Swedish Metal Mill Stock Company was constituted
1914 – New name, AB Swedish Metal Mill (AB Svenska Metallverken in Swedish)
1969 – Gränges buys the Metal Mill and renames it Gränges Essem
1980 – Electrolux buys Gränges
1986 – The Finnish Outokompu buys the copper part of Electrolux and the new name becomes Outokumpu Copper
A new central quarter in Västerås
The beginning of the 1990’s was the beginning of difficult times and the Outukumpu Copper had to painfully shrink from 1100 to 400 employees. However from painful acts often comes something good. Because Outukumpu stood with empty industrial areas corresponding about 50 football pitches it was possible to open the area to the public for the first time in about 100 years. The earlier closed and heavily guarded area to the town’s inhabitants became a new centre quarter with beautiful buildings. As Gustav Ohlsson, Managing Director of Outokumpu Copper said – We wanted an open attitude. It was important to the development of Västerås and we wanted to have the support of the town’s inhabitants.
Come forward to Kopparlunden
Skanska, the company that takes care of Kopparlunden’s estate, and Outukumpu announced a competition in 1994. The area should get a new name that would express openness. A little girl won the competition and a couple of years later Kopparlunden was established among the town’s inhabitants. You no longer can take a cab and ask to be taken to Nordiskan or the Essem, at least there is no guarantee that you will end up at Kopparlunden. However Kopparlunden is fine, if you ask to be taken to Kopparlunden the taxi driver will know where to take you. Gustav Ohlsson has a strong vision of Kopparlunden in which culture is a given ingredient. There had been experiments on taking cultural actions on the Rolling Mill, and it was the most successful cultural establishment in Kopparlunden.
We create the meeting places
Gustav Ohlsson is most pleased – Our vision is to have industry, high tech, culture and homes in the area. With CuLTUREN we have put into practice three out of four parts of our vision. We are very happy about the cooperation between culture and technique; it is good for both of them. We may say it easily.- Gustav Ohlsson draws on a paper. – Here we have CuLTUREN and here we have the technique. Here are two persons parking their car across each other. Both are on their way to their jobs. They start talking and then they may chose if they want to keep talking on the cultural side, the technical side or just at the parking area. We have created the meeting place, then it is up to each and everyone to use it. Now there is only one-fourth part of the vision missing, homes. There are space and qualifications, it is just a question of time – says Gustav Ohlsson.
The Emmaus’ shops have their own history
In 1971 Gränges acquired the Emmaus shops from ASEA. It was in the Emmaus shop, Nave 1 that CuLTUREN was established. In that shop ASEA used to manufacture large water powered generators, the largest ones of their category. From 1971 to 1999 there was really no operating industry there. In 1999 the city of Västerås bought Nave 1 from Outukumpu, and the place was even rented to a Gocart company.
The Västerås town buys Nave 1
In 1999 the town of Västerås bought Nave 1 of the Emmaus’ shops and was interested on buying some other sections. The old industrial site is about 4 200 square meters large. The first time Västerås Committee of Culture and Leisure was at the place it was dark and gloomy. However all could see the possibilities, for example Annika Lind that was employed as project manager on October 1999. She came from Village, one of the town’s music stages and was familiar with the local cultural life. According to Annika – It is about finding common goals and near common denominators. Here in Kopparlunden there is much that may strengthen culture. You can’t confine yourself and just not care about the whole; it goes against the idea behind the new Kopparlunden.
As cliché it may sound CuLTUREN is supposed to be a meeting place where culture may cerate new opportunities to develop. Here in Västmanland’s county culture may have a centre without being the centre for that matter. Here will culture try it’s wings and fill the present.
During the following time Annika Lind became the one running between politicians, meetings, and cultural workers and building meetings. All had their own opinions, ideas and budgets. At the same time the dark, gloomy and deserted industrial site was getting a new life, from top to toe. The windows on the ceiling lightens the building and the blue and grey colors generate a outstanding side-scene for the happy and bright colored decoration inside the building. What about the name? CuLTUREN spells Cu the Latin term for Copper.
Workplace and cultural organization
It is possible for 1200 to be inside CuLTUREN, when half of them are inside the auditoriums. On the main floor you may go to the cinema, have a cup of coffee on our café or have your lunch at our restaurant, enjoy a show on our auditoriums or simply look around our exhibitions on the square’s walls. On the second floor we have a exhibition area which is at the care of Ung Kultur, the Kopparlundsgymnasium that is a High School with profile Media and Humanities for about 200 students and teachers. On the second floor, or simply upstairs as we usually say, are offices for about 20 persons working for several organizations.
Our journey has been both long and short
It has taken only eight months to turn the Mill into a cultural centre. However much has happened on the way. Skanska, the contractor, started working on January 2000. It took 125 workers, 600 000 bolts, 19 000 square meters plaster, 1 300 tons concrete, high altitudes, complicated solutions, damp ground and high demands on noise matters making it harder to aggravate the work. Men now it is done! The curtain goes up. People flow in. The light reflects on the brick walls and you can hear laughter, chat and applauses.
