VATNSMYRI FOR THE PEOPLE
Reykjavik/ Iceland

Looking at recent city developments, it becomes clear that it is neither the people nor the political bodies that form our cities, but money. At the same time, individualisation manifests itself as suburbanisation which makes people - without them noticing - dependent on the capitalist system and the city, in its original sense as the collective space, dies.
VATNSMÝRI is a huge opportunity for Reykjavík not to assimilate to global developments, but to establish a new understanding of the city with the collective identity in its focus. By "extruding" the runways and developing one of the biggest "buildings" in the world, history is put into physical form - urban form. The structure will be a new kind of a monument - a monument for the people. Not built to represent financial power detached from the people, but to build a socio-political statement - a statement for the power of the collective. The form stands for unity and diversity simultaneously. It is a built environment, which due to its size can incorporate any kind of function and substructure without losing its strength and unity.

competition(2007):

Anne Niehüser
Oliver Seidel
Verena Brehm

with:
Dominic Balmforth, susturb