Iceland review - 2016, Page 58

56 ICELAND REVIEW
THE CURSE OF
BEAUTY
Arguments over new building projects in Reykjavík are
a sign of a vibrant city, writes Halldór Lárusson.
PHOTOS BY PÁLL STEFÁNSSON.
Some cities are cursed by beauty.
They are set in stone, timeless,
never to be changed. But they are
often stagnant places that survive on
memories of past glory—often lifeless
even though they are full of people.
Reykjavík is cursed by many things,
but beauty is not one of them. The city
does have its charms; for many people
that means the corrugated iron houses
of the city center. But those parts that
are beautiful are few and far between.
It is not the old part of town, the well
preserved wooden buildings, that makes
Reykjavík an attractive place to live. It is
rather the variety of architectural styles,
the inconsistencies in styles and quality
apparent everywhere you look that make
it unique. It is people who make a city
come alive, and for people to be able to
do interesting things a city needs to be
ever-changing, it needs to be flexible, it
needs to be for everyone.
URBAN PULSE
Many of the best cities in the world are
ugly. Only at a stretch could you describe
London and New York as beautiful, and
then only small, select parts. But they
are, along with a handful of their ugly
sisters, some of the most energetic and
interesting places in the world. Ugly cit-
ies are not precious; they can be changed,
they can be altered to suit the needs of
society as it changes. Buildings can be
torn down and new ones put up. Old
buildings can be changed around and
remodeled. Ugly cities can accommodate
a diverse population.
Many of us brought up in Reykjavík
find it difficult to understand why many
overseas visitors like the city so much.
We used to tell people visiting Iceland
that Reykjavík was worth around half a
day, with the rest of the time spent trav-
eling around the country. But more and
more people are defying us by traveling
to Iceland to spend time in Reykjavík.
Many of them come back repeatedly. A
surprising number stay for good. When
you ask them what it is they like, they
don’t usually talk about the old part of
town, at least not the houses. They talk
about the energy, the vibe, the people,
how Reykjavík is a great place to get
work done.
PRESERVING THE PAST
We should preserve the past, by all
means. But the idea that we should rec-
reate the past when building new houses
makes no sense. There would perhaps
have been an argument for it if we had
a history similar to that of many cities
in Central and Eastern Europe and were
rebuilding something that had been lost.
But Reykjavík was a poor city, little more
than a village for most of its existence,
and never had the critical mass of historic
buildings that make for a coherent whole.
The city’s population was 15,000 in 1915
when Hótel Reykjavík in the town center
caught fire and was destroyed together
with 11 houses. The fire convinced the
authorities that there was no future for
wooden houses in the town, and that
not only would concrete make the ideal
material for any new buildings, but that
it was obvious that the wooden houses
that survived were obsolete and would
have to go. In 1927 a new master plan
for the city was agreed upon. It assumed
that a new city would be built, the wood-
en houses replaced by continuous street
blocks, like Haussmann’s Paris, four sto-
ries high. But even though construction
began according to the new plan, the
people of Reykjavík quickly lost focus,
and discovered that they had different
visions for their city.
The perfect building in the perfect
location? Oh, just get on with it! If
you look around Reykjavík, you would
be forgiven for thinking that every ten