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KIRUNA EXPLORER EDITED BY Valeria Federighi

Temporalities of an urban transformation process

KIRUNA EXPLORER EDITED BY Valeria Federighi

Temporalities of an urban transformation process

Table of Contents 1. diachronic

Voices from Kiruna

2. synchronic

3. opportune

Temporalities of an urban transformation process Valeria Federighi

Diary of a research. Nodes, documents, actors Giovanni Ceselli

Diagramming the future. Philosophical digressions Tommaso Listo, Camilla Forina

Kiruna Chronotopes Camilla Forina, Tommaso Listo

Clara Nyström; Sofia Lagerlöf Määttää; Catarina Karlsson; Magdalena Tafvelin Heldner; Elena Mazzi; Charlie Gullström; Taneha K. Bacchin; Jennie Sjöholm

Mapping a territory Ilaria Tonti, Elisabetta Colucci, Fabio Giulio Tonolo

Unpacking a synchronic narrative Anna Bortolotto, Carlotta Tomassetti, Ilaria Tonti

112

Tooling interactions Valeria Federighi

132

Digitizing heritage Mesut Dinler, Riccardo Coppola

146

To catch an opportune time Alp Arda, Valeria Federighi

160

Postface Per-Johan Dahl, Caroline Dahl

176

Authors’ bios Credits

182 184

Temporalities of an urban transformation process Valeria Federighi The introduction - here the structure of the book is explained and the main research question is asked

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For two days, on August 19th-20th 2025, Kiruna was live non-stop on Swedish TV and appeared extensively on every major news outlet of Europe. Its iconic church, measuring 40x40x40m, weighing approximately 700 tons, was rolled to safety, away from the old town center and its subsidizing ground. In the span of two days, the potential accumulated over years of planning, decision making, discussions, negotiations, was released; the moving of the church, localized in a specific, short and dense time, can be read as the effect, or emergence, of a slower and longer time during which pieces were set, conditions were prepared, energies were spent, multiple choices were evaluated, dismissed, retrieved, modified. As late as 2024, the previously chosen destination for the church was under revision, as its closeness to the airport had raised concerns related to the height of the building. In that moment, the weight of previous discussions, meetings, decisions, documents, had to be put in crisis, and a new location had to be set on the table, evaluated, discussed anew. Only a few days after the move, on August 28th 2025, mining company LKAB gave a press conference to announce the new deformation forecast: the ground is sinking at higher velocity than anticipated, and more people than anticipated, sooner than anticipated, have to be relocated to the new city center. That announcement marked another moment of intensity, one that is possible to single out within a timeline of events, actions, unfoldings. Following the announcement, institutional bodies engaged in renewed negotiations on recurrent matters: which portions of land should be developed to accommodate the relocation? How can the need for new development reconcile with the identity, cultural and ecological, of a fragile territory? And how do such complex questions enter in the day-to-day practice of political exchange? The Kiruna Explorer project was released between these two topical moments: August 25th, 2026 marked the opening of the Hotspot Kiruna-Heritage in Action, hosted inside a brick building in the former mining area Tuolluvaara gruvaktiebolag (TGA). Hotspot Kiruna is intended to offer a new exhibition space located just north of the new city center and is set to become, in the intentions of the city

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administration, the future Kiruneum, a historical meeting place for the city of Kiruna. Kiruna has become known as “the city on the move”: the application dossier to European Capital of Culture 2029 was titled Movement. Below Ground. On Earth. In Space (2024), aptly referring to three of the main identities of the town: Sweden’s major extraction site, a community that is undergoing a radical transformation, but also an opening towards the many other vocations of the town, here represented by the space research center. This movement is a spatial movement: the iron being extracted, loaded onto trains, then shipped worldwide from the port of Narvik; the city being relocated to the new city center, people being removed from their homes, entire sections of the town being emptied and demolished; as well as objects being sent off into space, hinting at the other possible narratives that could and perhaps should accompany any account on Kiruna, in parallel to the dominant narrative, that of the mining town. The spatial dimension of movement is enticing for the general public (Kiruna’s visibility was obtained particularly through visualisations of entire buildings being lifted and relocated elsewhere), as well as for disciplinary discourse, ever interested in ways to redefine the boundaries of architectural and urban design and its agency. The town of Kiruna, its history and its impending move was the object of an extensive research and exhibition in 2014 (Golling and Carrasco, 2014), as well as of a large number of researches and accounts (to name just a few: Rizzo, Sjöholm and Luciani, 2024; Stihl, 2022) while the installation Transforming Legacy: The Evolution of Extractive Cultures in the European Arctic at the last Venice Biennale by Agatino Rizzo and Stefano Tornieri looked at territorial scale of the extraction industry centered in Kiruna. Movement is not, clearly, limited to the case of Kiruna: a few potent narratives have attempted to define what architecture is through criteria that depart the traditional relationship between object and ground (most notably Borasi, 2010 and Anstey, 2024). These accounts are valuable because they provide a set of tools to look at non-conventional processes of transformation, in which the ground is quite evidently an

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Figure 1. Kiruna Explorer installation, Kiruna Hotspot, August 2025

active agent of change, and movement unfolds in space as well as in time. The very first page of the application dossier to ECoC 2029 reads: “As a dimension of time, Below Ground is what’s behind us, our history and our heritage and roots. On Earth is the present, where we stand in this moment in time and In Space is what lies ahead of us, the future, hopes and dreams”. The city is past, present and future. But as with all complex processes of transformation, time does not unfold linearly. It hops and twists, defining a different type of movement that, with some effort, can be traced back and put in relation to the spatial movement of people and things: documents, iron ore pellets, rockets, buildings. Differently from the moving of the Church, which can be read as the tangible effect of a process or series of processes, the announcement of the new deformation forecast marks a moment of opening up of an interval of possible outcomes. Its effects are as of yet uncertain, and lie in a future which the mining company, the city and the other involved actors are trying to shape. Seen from the perspective of the ground, from the materiality of the city, the time at which the Church was moved was an opportune time – the time in which the effect was brought “to port” (Jullien, 2004): a time that

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Figure 2. Kiruna Explorer installation, Kiruna Hotspot, August 2025

can be caught because it is set within conditions that are favorable, in that moment. Conversely, the time at which the new deformation forecast was announced is a time of trigger, in which a certain course of action is sensibly deviated by an actant who, at that moment, holds a certain type of agency. The interval between the time in which a specific chain of events is triggered and the time in which it is brought to port is the time in which it is possible to intervene on it. Two factors, in particular, make this a difficult endeavor: one is that the time between the two moments is not a homogeneous time, but rather a time of varying intensities, where actions densify around deadlines, events, decisions, and where actors perceive the unfolding of events differently, depending on their perspective and on the access they can obtain to facts, information, decisions. The other is that, while events unfold, the correspondence between the elements involved in the triggering moment and elements involved in the opportune moment is opaque, at best. The construction of such a correspondence is, in fact, a design act and a political act.

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This book is an attempt to analyse the many times through which the process of urban transformation unfolds in Kiruna: each of its three main sections is dedicated to understanding a specific time, its implications, and its potential use. Each time (diachronic, synchronic, opportune) is explored through a simple design operation (diagramming, mapping, tooling). The assumption is that only by understanding the different times of a transformation process it may be possible to have agency within it.

[p. 52-53; 56-57; 60-61]

The first section of the book deals with the diachrony of transformation processes. It analyses the long time of decision-making processes, documental production, the often overlooked white noise of bureaucratic exchanges, the wheels turning – slowly, but effectively. The diachronic diagram is the first scientific product of the research, from which the other two (maps and digital tool) derive. Its structure owes to a tradition of visual experimentation of pragmatic analyses of urban transformation processes at the Department of Architecture and Design of Politecnico di Torino (most significantly, Armando and Durbiano, 2017; but also Armando et al, 2014, and Barioglio et al, 2022), in turn rooted in Actor Network Theory, Science and Technology Studies and the theory of Documentality. Diachronic diagrams follow the documental traces of urban transformation processes, putting first and foremost the dimension of time through which actions, actors, decisions and effects unfold and are connected via a curated but scientific narrative. In this section, the short essay “Diary of a research” recounts, almost in the form of a personal narrative, the making of the diachronic diagram, the collection of documents, the limitations of a temporallydefined fieldwork; a few segments of the diagram as shown in the Kiruna Explorer installation are also displayed and explored. The second essay, “Diagramming the future”, reflects on the different temporal scales that the production of such a diagram opens up to, and works in close relationship with the last essay, “Kiruna Chronotopes”, a visual reinterpretation of the diachronic diagram and some of its most enticing implications. The first and second sections are separated by the interlude Voices from Kiruna, collecting a number of short

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[p. 114-115]

[p. 118-119]

[p. 122-123; 126127]

commentaries from actors and scholars that work or have worked, hands-on, in the town’s ongoing transformation. This interlude offers a window into some gears that, moving individually and often in an asynchronous way, contribute towards the more visible effects and larger strategies that are observed in the rest of the book. The second section of the book deals with the synchrony of localized effects as they precipitate on a portion of land. Three segments of the diachronic diagram were selected to be visualized onto maps: specific nodes pointing to specific effects that can be traced and measured on the space of the city and of the territory. The result is three thematic maps that tell partial stories: “The Red Line”, explores how land deformation forecasts intersect with Kiruna’s existing urban fabric; “The New City Plan” presents different scenarios considered for the new city’s location and design; “Groundwork”, made of two maps that can be superimposed onto one another, reveals the material processes of demolition, relocation, and reconstruction shaping the built environment. Produced specifically for the Kiruna Explorer

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installation at Kiruna Hotspot, the three maps allow to connect the abstract rendition of the diachronic diagram to the materiality of the city, its objects, its streets, its territorial features. The two essays that make up this section are closely linked, and work together to unpack the scientific and practical process underlying the making of the maps (“Mapping a territory”) and the way that the maps were made, starting from a selection of nodes from the diachronic diagram (“Unpacking a synchronic narrative”). The third section of the book is dedicated to the definition of an opportune time as a digital tool is developed in support of decision-making. The initial, beta version of the tool is based on the construction of a digital archive of documents pertaining the urban transformation of the

[p. 164-165; 166167]

Figures 3-4. Kiruna Explorer installation opening, Kiruna Hotspot, August 25th 2025

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[p. 168-169]

[p. 174-175]

city: as the archive becomes more inclusive, and is added data representing the diverse perspectives and the many collectives that participate to urban life, the tool becomes a political tool. Its purpose is that of accompanying the longer times of transformation, offering support in identifying the opportune times at which agency can be found. For French sinologist Francois Jullien, the “opportune time” is not a fixed, singular moment to be seized (as in the Greek concept of Kairos), but rather a strategic moment within a longer process, tied to the concepts of “propensity” (shi) and “silent transformations” (les transformations silencieuses). It resonates with the idea of “disposition” as articulated by Keller Easterling, where agency can be found as a relationship between potentials. In this section, the essay “Tooling interactions” unpacks the digital tool Kiruna Explorer in its current form, as well as in possible subsequent articulations, in search of an opportune time that is at once hypothetical but contingent, located in an interval of possibilities opened by current practice. The essay “Digitizing Heritage” reflects on the issue of the archive(s) and its (their) composition and opens up to future developments related to the implementation of datalakes. Finally, the essay “To catch an opportune time” visually elaborates on the previous two, and open windows onto possible future articulations of the research. Kiruna Explorer is an ongoing project; its space of application extends at least within the events and actions leading up to Kiruna European Capital of Culture 2029. This book is intended to work as a handbook-of-sorts, to reveal the inner workings of a research project, and perhaps allow for a wider reflection on its possible applications. References Anstey, T. 2024. Things that move. A hinterland in architectural history. Boston: the MIT Press. Armando, A. and G. Durbiano. 2017. Teoria del progetto architettonico. Dai disegni agli effetti. Roma: Carocci Editore. Armando, A., M. Bonino and F. Frassoldati (eds.). 2014. Watersheds: a narrative of Urban Recycle. Hong Kong: Sandu Publishings.

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Barioglio, C., D. Cambobenedetto, A. A. Dutto, V. Federighi, C. Quaglio, E. Todella, (eds.). 2022. Innovation in practice in theory. Positioning architectural design and its agency. San Francisco: Applied Research and Design. Borasi, G. (ed.) 2010. Journeys. How travelling fruit, ideas and buildings rearrange our environment. Barcelona: Actar. Jullien, F. 2004. A treatise on efficacy: between Westermn and Chinese thinking. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Municipality of Kiruna, 2024. Movement. Below Ground. On Earth. In Space. Rizzo, A., J. Sjöholm, and A. Luciani. 2024. “Smart(en)ing the Arctic city? The cases of Kiruna and Malmberget in Sweden.” European Planning Studies 32, 1: 59-77. Stihl, L. 2022. Challenging the set mining path: Agency and diversification in the case of Kiruna. The Extractive Industry and Society 11. Tornieri, S. and A. Rizzo (eds.) 2025. Towards an Arctic Assemblage. Luleå: Luleå University Press. Golling, D. and C. M. Carrasco (eds.). 2020. Kiruna Forever, Architektur Förlag, Arkdes. Kiruna Explorer digital tool and installation credits Valeria Federighi (scientific coordination), Giovanni Ceselli and Ilaria Tonti (contents production coordination), Elisabetta Colucci and Fabio Giulio Tonolo (cartographic data consultancy), Camilla Forina, Anna Bortolotto and Carlotta Tomassetti (contents production) [Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino]; Riccardo Coppola, Marco Torchiano, Antonio Vetrò (digital tool production coordination), Seyedmohammad Khataeipour and students of Master-level course in Software Engineering II, a.y. 2024–25 (digital tool production) [Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Politecnico di Torino]; Tommaso Listo [Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Politecnico di Torino]; Clara Nyström, Sofia Lagerlöf Määttää [City of Kiruna]. Hotspot Kiruna exhibition credits Hotspot Heritage in Action is an initiative by TICCIH Sweden/SIM, produced for TICCIH 2025— Heritage in Action in Kiruna. Project Manager for Hotspot Heritage in Action: Ida Maria Svonni. Working group from TICCIH Sweden/SIM: Catarina Karlsson, Magdalena Tafvelin Heldner, Marie Östblom. From Kiruna Municipality: Clara Nyström, Sofia Lagerlöf Määttää. Hotspot has been carried out as a collaboration between: TICCIH 2025—Heritage in Action, TICCIH Sweden (SIM), Kiruna Municipality, Kiruna School of Culture, the project “Goal Conflicts in the Green Transition”, and Politecnico di Torino. Hotspot is a part of TICCIH—General Congress 2025—Heritage in Action.

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This section analyses the diachrony of transformation processes: the long time of decision-making, documental production, bureaucratic exchanges, wheels turning – slowly, but effectively. 14

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1 DIACHRONIC 15

DIARY OF A RESEARCH. NODES, DOCUMENTS, ACTORS

Diary of a research. Nodes, documents, actors Giovanni Ceselli This chapter gives a glimpse into the kitchen of the project, the time spent on the field, the construction of the categories of research

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When we began putting together the pieces of the process of Kiruna’s relocation, we immediately realized that it would not be a linear task. From the early 2000s, when discussions about moving the city began, an extraordinary number of events connected to the city’s transformation have taken place, events that would unfold over many more years in an ordinary city. Documents pertaining to the process of relocation, demolition and (re)construction constitute the primary source used to articulate this genealogy; but they are difficult to locate and equally difficult to position within the intricate puzzle of a process that, in order to move forward, required a very large number of actions, actors, and exchanges. It proved equally difficult to find anyone with a panoptic view of the process. This is because in Kiruna – and particularly within the municipal planning apparatus – people come and go much more rapidly than in other European contexts, with the result that the understanding of the ongoing process is typically spread across different human actors and perspectives. Written sources, for their part, have been affected by a double transformation: the shift from paper to digital archives, and the relocation of municipal archives from the old City Hall – demolished in 2019 – to the new one, where their contents still lie awaiting reorganization. Moreover, a large portion of the tangible traces of the transformation – namely, buildings and infrastructures of old Kiruna – have been and are being demolished, leaving the new city center, built 3 km to the east, as the only built testimony of the process. In mapping the process, we posed several questions: How is it decided when, which, and how many buildings are to be demolished? What amount of decision making is still open to negotiation, and what is instead the outcome of past decisions, agreements, exchanges that are now, for any reason, irreversible or very resistant to change? How does the relocation process for residents unfold, in day-to-day practice? What procedures must they follow? What amount and types of agency do they have, or can they excercise? How is it determined which buildings are worthy of being physically moved to the new city, and become the few symbols of continuity between the old and the new center?

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What amount of decision making is still open to negotiation, and what is instead the outcome of past decisions, agreements, exchanges that are now, for any reason, irreversible or very resistant to change? How does the relocation process for residents unfold, in day-to-day practice? What amount and types of agency do they have, or can they exercise? What economic, political, social criteria guide this and other aspects of the transformation? These questions quickly increased in number and complexity. As often happens, once even a partial answer to one question was found, it would open up multiple others – more specific, yet equally compelling and no less important for understanding what is happening in Kiruna. To grasp how such a unique process is managed, a short period of fieldwork was carried out between spring and summer 2024. During this time, I was able to immerse myself in what proved to be the most effective activity for understanding the process: a grounded search for documents. Documents are in fact the measurable material trace of decision-making, as they bind political decisions, design intentions, economic interests, and future visions into binding prescriptions – revocable only by acts of equal authority – thereby conferring deontic value upon these instances, whose only subsequent step can be the transformation of the built environment. My presence on site allowed me not only to access physical archives that would otherwise be inaccessible, but, more importantly, to witness firsthand the material effects of documents as they precipitate on the physical space of the city, and

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have access – however partial - to the perspective of those directly affected. In attempting to reorganize the vast amount of information collected and in order to better comprehend it, the overall urban process was divided into several strands, or stories, each recounting a specific aspect of Kiruna’s relocation, simple enough to be narrated individually along a temporal sequence. Once this analytical segmentation was completed, it became necessary to bring them back together, in order to understand how these long chains of instances interacted to shape the new city. The intellectual tool that allows these stories to converge is a hypertextual tool, represented in the form of a diachronic diagram. The aim of the diagram is to represent as many documental instances as possible that are related to the urban process. The focus is not on the actors themselves, but on their actions and interactions; the frame is, of course, the urban transformation process itself, which, once initiated, quickly became almost unstoppable, directing the choices of those who triggered it perhaps more than they directed the process itself. The term “instances” is used here as an umbrella concept to describe documents, agreements, conflicts, consultations, and material effects, based on the conviction that it is these interactions between actors that truly drive the process. Instances are represented as “nodes,” connected to one another through cause-and-effect relationships and organized within a two-dimensional space. Along the horizontal axis, they are positioned according to their date of publication or occurrence; along the vertical axis, they are organized according to “scale,” understood not only in architectural terms but also as proximity to the fulfillment of their primary objective – namely, the transformation of the urban environment. Following an assumption that is often valid, the more detailed the scale, the closer one is to project realization, which is ultimately the goal of the process itself. This attempt to reorganize instances according to their proximity to becoming urban matter is the most evident modification introduced to previous experimentations of diachronic diagrams. The nodes reveal different pieces of information about the instances they represent. Through the

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icon that graphically depicts each node, one can identify the type of instance. Eight types were identified; although their boundaries are not always sharply defined and often overlap, they remain essential for navigating the process. These types are grouped into three macro-categories: documents, material effects, and interactions between actors. The first macro-category includes four types of documents: design, informative, prescriptive, and technical. The design category groups instances with a strong project-oriented vocation – hence the name. These documents share a fundamental characteristic: they function as forecasts or self-fulfilling prophecies, envisioning hypothetical scenarios that materialize precisely because they were envisioned. Informative documents represent the primary means by which actors communicate; they are the traces of exchanges that influence both other actors and the process itself. Prescriptive documents possess deontic power: they grant legal force to other documents, binding them within a framework that ensures their implementation, and are therefore always issued by institutional bodies. The final category includes technical documents, inscribing objective analyses such as deformation forecasts, which underpin nearly all chains of documents and negotiations associated with the process.

Informative documents represent the primary means by which actors communicate; they are the traces of exchanges that influence both other actors and the process itself. Prescriptive documents possess deontic power: they grant legal force to other documents, binding them within a framework that ensures their implementation. 20

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The last macro-category, unlike the first, contains only one type of instance: material effects on the territory. Within it fall the three main actions shaping the city and territory: demolitions, reconstructions, and relocations. Interactions between actors form the second group of instances. These exchanges – sometimes peaceful, but more often reflecting divergent and thus inevitably conflicting interests – are described through three types: agreements, conflicts, and consultations. Another feature immediately apparent in the nodes is the actor that generated them. In the original version of the visualization, this was graphically represented through different colors. Frequently, and always in the case of interaction-instances, nodes displayed more than one color, indicating the joint participation of multiple actors in their creation. Five colors were used to identify the most recurrent actors: the Municipality of Kiruna, LKAB, the inhabitants of Kiruna, the professional firms involved in the project, and the regional authority – a category encompassing Sweden’s two principal regional bodies, the County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelse) and the Regional Council (Regioner). In subsequent versions, this color-based distinction among stakeholders was no longer displayed, resulting in a more visually homogeneous and impactful diagram. The final and crucial piece of information provided by the diagram concerns the position of nodes within the Cartesian space it defines. Nodes are placed along the horizontal axis according to their public release date (for documents) or occurrence date (for historical events such as meetings or inaugurations). The timeline begins in 2004, the year in which LKAB sent its well-known letter to the Municipality of Kiruna urging it to begin planning a new city in anticipation of opening a new extraction level in the heart of the Kiirunavaara mine. This marks the moment when the process can reasonably be said to have entered its active phase, and it extends to mid-2024, when the first phase of data collection was concluded. A single document was added to the diagram for 2025, in light of its exceptional importance and disruptive impact on the process, namely the update on the deformation forecast that was released

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by LKAB in August 2025. As can be observed, the yearly markers on the diagram are not equidistant. Some years occupy more space, corresponding to periods with a higher concentration of documents. This is intended to suggest that, in Kiruna, time does not flow linearly, and that the urban transformation process proceeds at varying speeds depending on endogenous, but above all exogenous, factors. Abrupt slowdowns and sudden accelerations are

Figure 1. Early stages: characterized by isolated clusters of nodes of crucial importance, in this case, the decision-making process on where to relocate the city and the municipality’s efforts to understand the population’s priorities.

2007

2008

Renewal of national interest (O)

Final Report: Kiruna New Railway Investigation (O)

Comprehensive plan for Kiruna C (M)

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What is Kiruna Worth? Kiruna a Cultural Valuation Analysis (R)

Compilation of responses from the survey “What is your impression of Kiruna?” (M&O)

Survey “What is your impression of Kiruna?” (M&O)

Environmental Impact Assessment for Comprehensive Development Plan for the Central Area of Kiruna (M)

Comprehensive Development Plan for the Central Area of Kiruna (M)

2009

not random but direct consequences of the economic drivers operating in the area. Chief among these is the global demand for iron. The higher the demand, the greater the quantity of ore extracted beneath Kiruna, and consequently the faster the ground deformations approach the city. Increased global demand for iron therefore translates into more buildings to demolish and reconstruct per unit of time, but also into higher profits for LKAB, providing the surplus necessary to finance reconstruction and to physically move more buildings. As previously mentioned, the vertical positioning of documents is determined by “scale,” understood not only in architectural terms but also as the proximity of a given instance to achieving its ultimate objective – namely, the transformation of the urban context through the architectural project. In the central portion of the graph, documents are positioned within a range of scales from 1:100,000 to 1:1,000 – typical of urban design. Above these are two fields labeled “textual documents” and “conceptual drawings,” the latter including non-dimensioned maps and drawings that often precede more precise scaled plans. Below the 1:1,000 scale lies a further category labeled “executive/material effects,” representing the final stage – the actual modification of the urban environment. Instances are organised in such a way along this axis to stress the measure of their proximity to having a physical impact on the ground. In a linear process, chains of documents would proceed in a straight line from time one to time two, moving progressively through scales from less to more detailed. In reality, due to the numerous unforeseen events that disrupt the process, document chains oscillate between the upper and lower parts of the diagram without an apparent pattern – this makes the diagram, if not strictly necessary, certainly revealing. In the common case where a document contains multiple components at different scales, the corresponding node is positioned in the category closest to “executive/material effects.” The predominance of the most specific scale reflects both the presence of multiple temporal phases – earlier, less detailed phases often serving as summaries – and the frequent inclusion, especially in architectural

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documents, of sketches or texts that play a supporting role when paired with dimensioned drawings. Another crucial layer of the diagram consists of connections. As anticipated, documents are linked through cause-andeffect relationships, represented graphically by lines. All nodes are connected to at least one other; unconnected nodes were removed from the diagram, as it is only through their connections that instances advance the process: it is the network of documents that renders the process possible and necessary, not the nodes in isolation. Connections are fundamental to interpreting the diagram and attributing value to individual nodes – the greater the number of connections, the greater a node’s capacity to influence the process. To provide an additional interpretive key, connections are divided into four types: direct consequence, collateral consequence, projection, and update. Direct consequence, the most common type, occurs when one node directly anticipates or foresees the creation of another, as in the sequence from a design competition to an architectural project, followed by executive drawings and construction. These connections are predictable and typically move from less specific to more detailed scales. Collateral consequence occurs when an act produces a side effect that generates another instance. Such effects are typical of complex processes with multiple interacting factors, the interplay of which is not always clear. Unlike direct consequences, these are unpredictable, though they share a temporal sequence.

Collateral consequence occurs when an act produces a side effect that generates another instance. Such effects are typical of complex processes with multiple interacting factors. 24

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2012

2011

Architecture competition brief (M)

First delivery (A)

A new city centre for Kiruna invite to an architecture competition (M)

Agreement on temporary railway relocation (M)

Agreement of the Municipal Board on city relocation (M)

Fracture Mapping Report (O)

Agreement: “Gp1-atvalet” (M&L)

Preliminary study on railway relocation (O)

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Railway decommissioning (L)

Projection resembles direct consequence, but with inverted temporality: the generating node – often a material effect – lies in the future relative to the generated node. The earlier document is thus created in anticipation of an event that has not yet occurred. Update occurs when an act is replaced entirely by a similar document that supersedes it. The connection between them is horizontal, as expected for documents that substitute outdated ones. Temporary Railway Stretch Completed (O)

Figure 2. 2012: the year of the competition for the design of New Kiruna, with the design component of the process at its peak.

Once completed, the diagram revealed several trends in Kiruna’s ongoing process – some implicit in its premises, others difficult to detect beforehand and thus more intriguing. For instance, examining direct consequences shows that in 75% of cases, lines move downward – from less specific documents toward material effects – indicating that when events proceed according to plan, the process tends toward some form of resolution. These connections represent the majority and have an average temporal span of three to four years.

Figure 3 (opposite page). The shift: from 2014 onwards, the implementation phase of the process begins, represented in the image by the lines running toward the lower part of the diagram – from decisions and projects to their actual realization.

Collateral consequences, by contrast, are evenly split between upward and downward directions, demonstrating equal potential to accelerate or slow the process. They are less frequent and display highly heterogeneous temporal spans, ranging from a few months to seven years. Projections all move downward, as their endpoint is always within the material effects band. Their average duration is seven years, significantly longer than the other types, reflecting the fact that in this geographic context, preparing for future events requires more time than elsewhere, particularly because demolitions, reconstructions, and relocations can be carried out only during the few months each year when the climate permits. Updates, similarly limited in number, also have aboveaverage temporal spans. Their defining feature, however, is their horizontal direction, as expected for documents that replace earlier ones. Another set of trends concerns the temporal distribution of instance types. Design documents are most present in the first part of the diagram – 75% appear before 2014 – whereas from 2014 onward there is an 80% concentration of prescriptive documents, along with material effects, which first appear in 2012 and then increase exponentially. Perhaps the most compelling observation emerges when

Design documents are most present in the first part of the diagram, whereas from 2014 onward there is 26

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an 80% concentration of prescriptive documents, along with material effects, which first appear in 2012 and then increase exponentially. Figure 4 (opposite page). The most recent years: the transformation of the territory is at its peak. During this period, the material effects and other fine-scale nodes are concentrated, with the occasional occurrence of unexpected setbacks.

instances and their connections are viewed as a whole. Two phases become discernible: an initial phase in which elements cluster in the upper portion of the graph, and a subsequent phase in which nodes and connections shift rapidly downward. While such a shift was predictable, what was less expected was its timing – around 2014 – and especially its speed. This sharp transition led almost automatically to the identification of two major phases in the process: the design phase (2004–2014) and the implementation phase, which began in 2014 and continues to this day, with no foreseeable conclusion in the near future. The diagram is certainly an excellent tool for reading the process as a whole, but examining individual instances in detail and exploring the connections between documents is not immediate. To make the diagram easier to read – and therefore make the urban transformation process more accessible – it was later transformed into a hypertext tool. By digitizing what was originally just a drawing, countless possibilities opened up to add information and make the content already present in the diagram clearer and more accessible. One key advantage is the ability to navigate through the various documents, accessing the information connected to them directly from the diagram. Moreover, each instance has a direct impact on the territory. This means that each node can be associated with a well-defined area within the municipality of Kiruna. This characteristic made it possible to generate and make accessible a whole series of additional pieces of information related not to the temporality of the instances, but to their spatialization. In this way, it becomes possible to reconstruct the documentary history of specific places within the broader context of Kiruna.

DIARY OF A RESEARCH. NODES, DOCUMENTS, ACTORS

Diagramming the future. Philosophical digressions Tommaso Listo Camilla Forina This chapter questions the logical organisation of the diagram. Can it be oriented towards the future? What can a diagram do?

KIRUNA EXPLORER

“What is hidden within political and economic interests, bureaucratic decisions, and extractivist practices rarely manifests so clearly on the surface, becoming as symbolically and politically visible as it does in the case of Kiruna. This book and project are much more than an architectural-forensic account of a symbolic Anthropocene event; they operate as a real-time intervention: a tool for critical examination, sensing transformation, and mapping complexity while it is still unfolding. Essential reading for all of us who, in this age of planetaryscale uncertainty and anxiety, want to deep-dive and search for clues and answers within the complexity and multidimensionality of Anthropocene madness.” Vladan Joler, co-author of Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500: Silver Lion, Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2025

Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost town, is undergoing a process of radical urban transformation as ground subsidence caused by mining operations in the world’s largest underground iron ore mine compels the demolition and relocation of much of the town. Part handbook, part critical inquiry, this book traces the many temporalities that intersect in this process of change, while opening a space for imagining future scenarios.