Genius loci e memorie urbane. Il progetto di Ragnar Östberg per l’area di Eldkvarn

The paper explores the city of Stockholm, apparently far from the main tracks of other significant European examples due to its peculiar morphological features. The study investigates the Stockholm Town Hall (Stadshuset) and the nearby never-to-be realized Commission Building (Nämdhuset) designed by the leading exponent of the national romanticism Ragnar Östberg (1866-1945). He published the drawing of the entire complex forming an open square, but it has never been studied by critics as a whole entity. The project responds to the Rossi’s concept of a being a «part of the city» and it shows a dialectic relationship between the genius loci of the archipelago and urban memories which were the result of his interpretation of different townscapes. Particularly, the focus is on explicit, yet subtly concealed, influences of Venice and the Swedish traditional castles. The complex is an oscillation between the locus and types assembled according to spatial sequences of collective spaces.