Map of Established Peace for Everyone Everywhere!
Letters across the stretch of water
Relations between cities and people evolve through generations and political landscapes. Historically, Copenhagen and Malmö went through 300 years of conflict during the 16th to 18th centuries, leading to separate development in culture, politics and language. Since the mid-1800s, Scandinavian bonds have grown stronger, and with the opening of the Bridge in 2000, the concept of the ‘Øresund Region’ truly emerged. Today cultural exchange flourishes, only divided by the stretch of water in between.
One of our new bright Øresund partners Jenny Grettve, born, raised and actively living across the region - has just started in a new position as Head of Transformation at EIT- Culture and Creativity.
In the following we exchange thoughts and ideas on both past and future.
Malmö, Saturday 31. May 2025
Dear Mads,
The stretch of water between us has begun to feel less like geography and more like a question: what do we build to cross it, physically, emotionally, historically? I’m asking this since in a time when walls are built in new shapes, I keep thinking about what kind of architecture we need for the invisible things. What kind of infrastructure can guide hope, meaning, freedom and joy regardless of boundaries, walls or regulatory order.
I guess for both of us, each living on the edge of the narrow sound between Denmark and Sweden, the water has been part of how we’ve seen the world. Somehow the other land, the land we see when we look out over the often calm water, has been the end. This is not a vast open ocean, this is a small scale world where the finite perspective has framed our realities. It sounds severely damaging, to be living in a state of oblivion, not seeing the larger world around us. But, I’ve started wondering if maybe that is a good thing in a world where globality as a noun and a verb has taken humanity into absurd depths. Are our familiar waters large enough?
Any child growing up in Sweden and Denmark has learnt about our violent history. Between the years of 1563 and 1814 our countries were involved in 10 large wars with each other. I’ve lost count on how many times the southern parts of Sweden were Danish, and vice versa, and the stories are violent and mad. The city where I grew up, Lund, has a monument over one of the battles where in just one day, almost 9000 soldiers from both sides lost their lives. The brutal man led histories must have shaped us and I wonder about that notion in relation to my life today, my responsibilities and my need for a peaceful world.
When I was 16 I took the boat one last time from Malmö to the airport in Copenhagen. Since then, the bridge has been there, replacing the floating vessels with a concrete link between both cities. We commute, work, share lives and economies, hang out with friends, divorce and co-parent cross countries and enjoy culture and thrills on the other side. Yet, the divide is somehow still there. So I wonder, Mads. Is this the time to overcome both the invisible and the visible, to build both the emotional and the concrete infrastructure for futures that respect life not only here but everywhere?
Hope to see you soon!
/Jenny
Copenhagen, Friday 06. June 2025
Dear Jenny,
I guess the sea has always made us wonder. Starring into the horizon always brings a kind of longing. Wondering about the other side, feeling hope or perhaps quite the opposite when looking out towards the endless horizon. But, wherever I see water, I feel a connectedness. It’s the visible and the invisible. It’s the surface that binds everything together, and the depths we will never fully understand.
I agree the architecture of building walls, visible and invisible, is more outspoken than ever before. From border control to tariffs! Conflicts among nations are slowly changing the way we think and feel about collectivity and coexistence. I like to draw maps to imagine, speculate and explore. The other day, I found myself sketching a submarine station, controlling our shared waters. The invisible infrastructure beneath the surface. Thoughts of resilience are turning into thoughts of defense. Futures are becoming more and more fearful. This is concerning.
But, being an optimist at heart, I still see hope across our stretch of water, bridging every day lives of people, economy, knowledge, faith and feelings as you describe. Last month I was giving a lecture to a group of students and one of them was asking me when she would be able to bike from Malmö to Copenhagen. I didn’t know what to say, but that kind of question, and those kind of ideas bring me hope.
So, Jenny. What if we truly started believing in our shared stretch of water as a collective space, instead of a barrier? A place to gather around as one city, well knowing that there are people on the other side who cares, and share the same ideas.
Let’s catch up soon
/Mads
Malmö, Monday 09. June 2025
Dear Mads,
Reading your letter, I’m wondering why futures seem to become more fearful. It was for sure not great to live during the plague in the middle ages, or to be a slave building the pyramids for what that matters. The difference we live with today is probably the fact that human cruelty used to affect only other human beings and not the full planetary ecosystems. And maybe it is with the scale in mind that we can discuss and probe different futures that feel less frightening.
As architects we were taught to move between scales. From 1:25 to 1:1000. But also to move between perspectives, to see space and reality from various viewpoints. If we look at borders with those skills, they quickly turn into a strange concept. Why did humans decide we can own land? Why aren't birds or trees owning land? And how did only some humans believe they were the only ones to grab land from nature in the first place? These questions might seem bizarre, but when you think about it more deeply, the result we’ve ended up with is just as strange. Humans owning land, national borders drawn on a paper and citizens having to adapt. This all makes me think of the project you’re working on, Greater Copenhagen. If we are to look at values for a safe future, for democracy and freedom, meaning for all. Then we might be very wise to look beyond regulatory borders and let us be informed by human skills, resources and nature. To look for collaboration and meaning, rather than economic incentives.
I like the idea of redrawing maps. There is so much imagination to be retrieved from drawing freely. But stop sketching control stations Mads! It seems like you had a brief moment of despair. Today I read a beautiful article on peace, how we need to counteract the many brutal wars going on. What would you draw to establish peace, for everyone, everywhere?
And what if your student was on to something when wanting to bike to Malmö? The simplicity of life. To be able to walk, bike, laugh, play, love, care. But who would make that happen? If I was mayor in Greater Copenhagen I would flip it all. I would remove efficiency to give space for time. I would remove fear and replace it with care. I would ask loud voices to be quiet and gently push the timid souls to lead for a while. I would let children decide how to work, and grownups how to play. I would let men be vulnerable, and women to rest. I would let migrants teach, and natives to learn. I would let birds dictate architectural materials, and humans to make sure birds were safe. Not a bad idea, this mayor thing, haha!
Warm hugs!
/Jenny
Copenhagen, Tuesday June 10. 2025
Dear Jenny,
For the future of Greater Copenhagen, in a ‘Blue Metropolis’, we will make you the Mayor of CARE – Cities As Responsible Environments. But we need a different framework for you than the one we have today, where borders are everywhere. And I agree, administrative borders challenge all scales of co-existence and cooperation among countries, regions, cities, and even neighbors. They are structural elements of conflict because they represent power and resources!
But how would we negotiate and deal with power, systems, and plans if we didn’t have borders as geographical lines on earth to talk across and negotiate around? How would we decide what should be urban, what should be rural, and what should be forest? Imagine a world without land ownership — it would completely shift our perspective on power structures and fundamentally change the sense of responsibility. Ownership and responsibility are closely connected, like it or not. How would such a new system of no borders and no ownerships look like? How would we ensure that our cities and neighborhoods remain safe and livable?
I think we started harming our planetary ecosystems hundreds of years ago. If you read the adventures of Alexander von Humboldt in The Invention of Nature, he already recorded how we were damaging ecological systems back in the 16-1700s. In fact, the scale of damage probably started even earlier than that, and today we see the consequences of upscaling urban systems for both living and production. It’s in our nature to harness, control, and urbanize land. The more humans we are, the more damage we do. We need to completely rethink the way we live to change this systemic contradiction into a just and livable future.
I’m skeptical of our human nature these days, but I’ll take your challenge and work on a Map of Established Peace for Everyone and Everywhere. Please send me that article, and any other inspirational sources. Let’s plan a future of birds leading the way, and kids showing grownups how to play not work. More dancing, laughing, and loving. A slow, still, peaceful, shared urbanism. Any future - Come along and see, we flipped it!
Big Hugs!
/Mads
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