Reversing the Gaze: The Role of Metropolitan Voids as Structuring Elements of Stockholm’s Territory

Abstract

Over the last decades, studies on the urban landscape, ecology, and metabolism have emphasised the primordial role that infrastructures and unbuilt spaces play in processes of extended urbanisation, as well as the need to consider these extended systems as an integral part of contemporary urban space. In this paper, we highlight the importance that metropolitan voids had in the formation of the geographical and territorial system of Stockholm’s region, as well as the role that landscape played in the urban models of Sweden’s welfare state. In the Swedish context, the suburban developments of functionalist planning, and particularly the residential projects of the miljonprogram, constitute extremely valuable case studies to analyse and re-evaluate the role of unbuilt spaces as structuring elements of cities and regions. The article analyses how this urban process shaped Stockholm's region and concludes by suggesting that unbuilt spaces may take on a key role in its future development.