Getting People Used to New Ideas: The Nobel Center Case
One odd little detail of the 2018 Swedish election campaign is how some parties chose to focus their social media message on attacking the proposed new Nobel Center . Designed by David Chipperfield Architects, this new building is supposed to be built on Blasieholmen in central Stockholm, replacing an old customs house presently on the site. Some people love it; others clearly do not and there is an organised campaign to oppose the new building. What is interesting about this campaign is how commonplace it is. When the iconic Tower Bridge in London was first proposed it was widely ridiculed, so was the Tour Eiffel in Paris. Now nobody would ever consider removing either of them. Some buildings are, in fact, genuinely repellent. A glance at the winners of the Carbuncle Cup show clearly that some designs not only have no merit, they seem to suck the merit out of their surroundings, too. But many others are not precisely bad but unfamiliar. Why is it that a Tower Bridge or Tour E