Listening to the city

Prologue

You are listening to Listening to the city – a soundwalk that moves in and out of time, searching for traces in the landscape in and around the Klostergården neighbourhood of Lund.

This soundwalk is part of the larger public art project Listening to the city. It is a collaboration between artists Maj Hasager and Ask Kæreby, the residents of Klostergården and students from the Lund music school Kulturskolan. The work is produced in collaboration with Lunds konsthall and commissioned by Lund City Council.

The soundwalk takes you around Klostergården, with several stops along the way, but you can also listen to the soundwalk without being in Klostergården. You will encounter a mix of different perspectives from inside the area and views from outside. With listening as the focus for experiencing a place, we ask: What is it that surrounds us when the gaze is no longer the sense that maps a geographical and cultural place?

Part of this sound piece was created by the music school’s ensemble Kammarorkestern. The young members of the orchestra visited Klostergården on a March day in 2022, where they listened to the neighbourhood and collected sounds. Later, they translated the sounds to their acoustic instruments, creating a new composition in which they interpret a sonic snapshot of the neighbourhood. Later that year, the composition was performed on the empty splash pad at the centre of Klostergården.

The voices of the neighbourhood are presented along the way during the soundwalk. These are the people who live, work or have grown up here in Klostergården, and who have contributed their stories and perspectives: the Klostergården group, the Night Walkers, the climate activist, the choir, the associations, the local community and those who work here.

We are in the southern part of Lund. Here, the high-rise buildings serve as a reminder of another time, when the dream was car-free zones and a life where everything was located together in a modern local community. Gunnar Stensson, a long-time resident of Klostergården and the area’s informal local historian, writes in his 2004 text: ‘The neighbourhood was built in the early 1960s on farmland south of the city. Many critical voices were heard back then. We recognise the arguments of the last four decades against the housing areas of the Millionprogrammet: Another concrete suburb. High-rise buildings do not belong in Lund. The area is dull and ugly. It creates a ghetto with no connection to the rest of the city.’

For a long time, Klostergården was the only high-rise area in Lund and was therefore associated with the Millionprogrammet, a government programme designed to solve the housing shortage in Sweden through high-rise buildings and dense development, carried out between 1965 and 1974. This association was made despite the fact that Klostergården was planned and largely built between 1962 and 1968 according to the ideals of modernist urban planning, and before the social-democratic project of Millionprogrammet.

Lund’s population multiplied, and they needed to build a whole new neighbourhood. So they chose to build it here. It is probably the neighbourhood in Lund where people thrive the best and perhaps it’s also the most peaceful. But that wasn’t the case from the start, because it was very much a working-class neighbourhood. The vision came from some famous architects who had worked with the suburbs of Stockholm. They designed these high-rises; the buildings were placed around 10 courtyards, which were quite large and also varied. The idea was that those sharing a courtyard would have a social connection.

If you go further back in history, you can trace the name ‘Klostergården’ to the 12th century.

So first of all I can say that we do have historical roots. There was a monastery in Lund that owned large areas of land in Skåne. Villages, farms and harbours were also important. Then came the Reformation, and the Danish king confiscated everything. And then it ended up in the hands of a nobleman, and then the monastery farm, the land itself, was gathered here. So it was called Klostergården and there was a big farm here and it belonged to a famous nobleman from Skåne.

The first stop on this soundwalk is at the Church of the Holy Spirit and the bell tower – both of which are typical examples of architecture from the 1960s, created by architects Sten Samuelsson and Robert Larsson.

1. Church of the Holy Spirit

The shape of the clock tower creates a portal-like entrance into the neighbourhood’s centre. When the chimes ring out – their sound reaches across the entire area, creating a recognisable soundtrack.

Teenagers enter the Holy Spirit Church with instruments in their hands and on their backs – the laughter and chatter fades as darkness envelops them. Only a dim light frames them, and soon the sound of violins can be heard in the nave, fading out. They gather at the altar and line up in two rows – the sound of heels on the church floor echoes in the large, square room, and then there is silence.

The two conductors start the piece and the subtle instrumental sounds are enhanced by the church’s acoustics. The orchestra is divided into four groups, and each group is conducted with a drawing on a piece of paper. Sonic interpretations of Wastepaper basket, Leaves & birds, Bench, Surfboard, Lamppost, Crow, Rail crossing barrier, Train, Footsteps, Bricks, Pen, Well cap, Bicycle, Electric cabinet, Coop store, Wagon form the basis of a composition that is far from traditional orchestral music, and becomes a brief snapshot of the sound of Klostergården, captured by the young ensemble.

We are now heading east towards the colourful activity area and playground Aktivia, which is about 200 metres from the church.

2. Aktivia

What does a place sound like? How often do you spend time listening to a place, listening to the city? Taking a moment to stop and zoom in on the sounds that surround us, and which are almost imperceptible.

Built in 2016 as a municipal playground, Aktivia oozes choreographed play, framed by fashionable colours in contrast with the colours of Klostergårdsfältet, as the surrounding park is called. Stop for a moment and feel the soft, fall-safe surface. This used to be a ‘construction playground’, a self-organised playground with space for free play, do-it-yourself construction and imaginative wooden structures, before it disappeared from the district.

We had a construction playground, we built huts and so on. We hammered, sawed and cut ourselves. We had rabbits, a couple of pigs and a couple of lambs. We went there every day, really. And sometimes there was a concern that we made a mess. But it was great fun.

The next stop on the soundwalk is the hill – or sledding hill, as it is called – which is located next to the small clearing Östanparken, in the northern part of Klostergården.

From the Aktivia playground, enter the park along the path next to the trampoline and bench. Follow the left-hand path eastwards, parallel to Aktivia, for about 100 metres, until the path splits into two. Here you’ll find the hill on the right, in between the trees. You can choose to stand at the bottom of the hill and listen to the next piece, or follow the path to the left up the hill.

3. The Hill

It is said that if you dig deep enough into the hillside, you will find remnants of the Battle of Lund of 1676, which is said to be one of the bloodiest battles in Nordic history.

My name is Anna-Lena Smith and I am 71 years old. I am an art therapist. Down there where you go past the other meadow and where there is a small hill, you can see the seasons, because in the winter the little snow that falls there gets worn off by the kids. The kids run in the meadow in summer. It’s a nice place to sit, I think. There are so many people, it’s so multicultural. There are so many children. It’s not quiet here – there’s life in Klostergården, and I like that.

My name is Nina Lindström, I’m 48 years old and I work as a teacher at Klostergårdens School in Lund. When I was younger, there was a thing we called Byggesbacken, where you went sledding in the winter. It was huge. It isn’t anymore – well, it’s the same size, but for me it was gigantic as a child. And then there was also a skateboard ramp and a leisure centre and a construction playground that were very important to us. We spent a lot of time there as young people, or teenagers. These places no longer exist.

Behind the hill is a small hidden glade called Östanparken, hidden like a secret little pocket.

It’s time to move on to the next stop, in the centre of the park, which is the large oak tree that is lit up after dark, near the entrance to the Coop store.

If you are at the top of the hill, go back down. Continue along the path towards the apartment blocks, and when the path forks, take the right side. You have the building Gråvädersväg 4 K-N on your left; go past it, and then turn right into the park. Head to the large oak that stands near the entrance to Coop.

4. The Large Oak

Try closing your eyes and navigating by means of sound. What happens when hearing becomes the sense that guides us in urban space? Try to focus your attention on individual sounds. Does the sound resonate in a particular way between the buildings? Do you think Klostergården makes more or less sound when there are leaves on the trees?

Ann-Christin, who has a visual impairment, describes how she navigates Klostergården using the sounds.

I have lived here since 1967, I think. And then I have moved around here in Klostergården. For me, it’s a very pleasant sound, I know I’m close to home when I hear the splash from the splash pad. Partly because I know the area now, I can form an internal picture of what it looks like. I recognise sounds and echoes from the houses and so on as I move around. When I walk past the benches, if someone is sitting there, they might say hi. Sometimes it’s young people who sound a bit rowdy. But then you can also hear that most of the time it’s just normal bickering or that they’re happy. So I never get scared. And if something sounds very strange, you can divert. You don’t have to go there if you feel that this doesn’t sound right.

Close your eyes and imagine day turning into night. The night creates an unrecognisability, and a special atmosphere emerges when the darkness is broken by only a few sources of light. The long shadows, which stretch and obscure an otherwise familiar area of identical houses, courtyards and the park that lies deserted and dark without many features.

Surrounded by darkness, your senses are heightened and the soundscape suddenly takes on a different meaning. A group of Klostergården residents walk the area every Friday night as a safety measure – poetically called the Night Walkers.

My name is Eva Svederberg. I’ve lived at Klostergården for many years, 47 years in fact. So I’m very settled here, you could say. The fact that I’ve lived here for so long hints that I’m very content. But suddenly young people came in and started destroying things. Broke windows in the school, and broke windows in the shopping centre here. An incredible effort was made by the police, social services, the leisure centre. They gathered enormous resources to stop this. And we here at Klostergården decided that we would go on a safety walk, parents and grandparents. And it was actually me who took the initiative for this. Because I asked the outreach group because I had been involved in night walking when my daughter was in her teens, and that was many years ago; they came from Nattvandring.nu, from their organisation. They informed us about how it works, what to do when night walking and what the rules are. We started immediately, so that we started safety walks every Friday and Saturday. First year, all year round. And then we’ve continued to do safety walks. But now we only walk on Friday evenings. Because things have calmed down since and people think it’s not necessary. The accessibility of Klostergården is only increased by the trains stopping here. So now it feels extra important that we really keep it going. Because we think that many more young people will come.

Take a look around – is there anything in particular that catches your eye? Do you see the small herb gardens at the entrance to the centre of Klostergården? You are welcome to walk over there.

Imagine a sunny day in March. The pale sun illuminates the area. Here, groups of young people from the music school Kulturskolan in Lund stand in clusters around Klostergårdsfältet with their mobile phones, wearing large winter jackets, looking around. The trees are still bare and the wind blows lightly through a quiet Klostergården. The groups disperse, and around the landscape you can see young people focusing on trees, bicycle racks, rubbish bins, leaves, lampposts and many other objects that rarely receive such concentrated attention. They listen, listen to the neighbourhood, and carefully select sounds to be practised later on their acoustic string instruments. For many of the young music students, this is their first visit to Klostergården.

Three teenagers stand in a group facing a tree. The sound of voices between the buildings disappears towards the centre of Klostergården, where Klostergårdsfältet runs like a long, grass-covered wedge and disappears into a remote buzz from the station, which can be heard a short distance away.

The next stop on the soundwalk is at the top of the car park at the junction of Sunnanväg and Virvelvindsvägen, in about 600 metres. Here you can look out over the area stretching southwards. From the small herb gardens, walk south, in the opposite direction of Coop. Follow this path until you reach Blidvädersvägen at number 6 A-C, and here turn right onto the path and continue straight ahead for about 200 metres, until you reach Virvelvindsvägen 4 A-B-C. Here, turn left: you will see a park and a car park at Sunnanväg. Walk up to the top of the parking lot and find the right corner facing the road. If you wish, you can go to parking stall 443 and look out over the landscape.

5. Car Park, Sunnanväg / Virvelvindsvägen

From where you now stand, you can glimpse the Höja å stream, which is obscured by buildings but can be discerned from your current position. Behind you can see the St. Lars area, which is now home to several private schools, and which used to have a hospital for patients with mental illnesses.

Klostergården was built on a treeless field in the 1960s. About 100 years earlier, in 1864, a 15-year-old Carl Fredrik Hill stood by the Höja å stream and sketched the landscape. He was to become one of Sweden’s most recognised artists. The idyllic landscape and the stream meandering through the Scanian soil were later depicted in his oil paintings, as he looked towards Lund.

C. F. Hill wanted to revitalise landscape painting, and his first attempts were based on the landscape around Lund. He had his big breakthrough in Paris, where he had a painting accepted into one of the most prestigious art salons of the time. In 1877, at the age of 28, schizophrenia and psychosis broke through, and C. F. Hill was hospitalised – first in Paris and then in Roskilde in Denmark, before coming to St. Lars Hospital.

It was a large mental hospital, 1,500 to 2,000 residents. It was a largely self-sufficient facility as well. It was expensive to live here. Hill lived here. He was here for a period of time. The comical thing is that he would doodle. He painted on the walls and they were very careful to clean it off.

During a two-year period, Hill lived next door to the vast fields of Klostergården. Here he was admitted as a first-class citizen, and his artistic expression was moulded by a psychotic inner world – which unfolded on paper. In his drawings, people and animals now appeared in a phantasmagorical world that was at the same time rooted in something real. The last 28 years of C. F. Hill’s life were spent on Skomakaregatan in Lund, where he created more than 3,000 drawings and pastels.

Our gaze lowers again as we head down from the car park. About 200 metres from here you will find Sunnanväg 18 B, which is the next stop on the soundwalk. When you come down from the car park, turn right, walk around the car park and then go right again along Sunnanväg. You will enter the courtyard at 18 B.

6. Courtyard, Sunnanväg 18

Enter the courtyard at Sunnanväg 18 B and look around. The first thing you’ll see is a monument made of sandblasted concrete that runs parallel to the path across the courtyard. Take your hand and run it over the material, and move around the work to see it from both sides. Cryptic signs resemble traces in the landscape, or a kind of prehistoric mapping, or perhaps a typeface you are encountering for the first time.

The work creates a back-and-forth movement reminiscent of a cartoon film that the viewer activates through movement.

Notice how the sound of your footsteps echoes off the concrete surface and then fades away.

The work Bläddran has stood here in all weathers since 1967 and was created by John Wipp.

The high-rise buildings of Klostergården to the north and east provide shelter from the wind, while the low-rise buildings to the south and west let in the sun. The open field between the railway and Malmövägen is known to be windy. This is reflected in the names of the roads that frame Klostergården: North, East, South and West Road. The climate was also the starting point for naming the neighbourhoods: Grey Weather, Mild Weather, Thunder, Whirlwinds and Spring Weather. Gunnar Stensson writes in his text from 2004: ‘The enclosed courtyards generally provide pleasant shelter from the wind, but from certain wind directions, turbulent currents arise when the air is compacted in the narrow entrances to the neighbourhoods. I’ve seen children literally take flight and adults trying in vain to push their way through the wind.’

My name is Sima Nasizadeh. I am 67 years old – young, you might say. Before I retired, I worked for Doctors Without Borders as a lab manager in different countries. Now I am retired and a climate activist. I fight for the future and for social justice. There were plans to build a sports centre. But there’s an organisation called Preserve Källby Nature that has fought hard against this. So now the politicians in Lund have backed down and said that they will not build anything on allotment areas. But then there is still the danger that they will use other green areas to build on. A few years ago, when you went to the Höja å stream, it was completely impossible that there would be flooding. But now it’s very common. So if more and more green areas are destroyed, there is a great risk that there will be more flooding here at Klostergården. And especially in view of everything that has to do with climate change. We will see major climate disasters more and more in the future; it will become the norm. So we will need every green area there is.

From the outset, all Klostergården residents had a say in what would be planted on the grounds where they lived, which created a sense of ownership and belonging in an otherwise newly developed area without long or deep roots.

In one of the courtyards, we meet Gunilla Andersson in the communal pavilion. She hadn’t imagined that Klostergården would become her home again after she moved from the neighbourhood in the 1970s.

My name is Gunilla Andersson and I will soon be 70 in December. And I live here in Klostergården, so I could look up at my balcony if the leaves were not in the way. It creates a sense of community. The ‘us’ that live here create a community. I often sit down with a book and read here on the bench. People often come up and chat for a while. All ages, I like that, all nationalities, I like that. It felt so welcoming when we moved in, the people in our part of the building had just the right amount of curiosity. We don’t rush in, we never do that, but instead send a text message: ‘I’ve baked today, do you want to come in?’ But nothing like this rushing inside, there is no violation of boundaries. We care about each other, we do, and I think that’s really nice. We have a yarn shop, which I guess you’ve seen. That also started as a meeting place on Thursday evenings, between 6 pm and 8 pm, I think it was: ‘Those who fancy company, come have a coffee and take some handicraft with you’. So that went on for quite a while. Then it became a yarn shop. And now it serves the same purpose, you could say, although it’s open a little longer.

Once a week, a local choir with international roots meets here at Klostergården. It is an open community that reaches out into public space whenever possible. They talk about spontaneous encounters with neighbours and how they can contribute to a positive neighbourhood and local area.

I’m Nathalie Dispagne Gunnarsson, originally from France. I moved to Sweden 10 years ago because of my career as a professional dancer, as well. So we often meet here at Parva’s or my place to practice with the choir. And then when the weather was nice we moved to the court right there […] because it was nice and because it’s such an echo. We didn’t know back then but the neighbours heard our songs all the time and some neighbours w[ere] coming to the window, having a whole show like ah!, people singing and even clapping. And so it started, that was the first connection through music that we had with the neighbours. And then we tried to organise a lot of activities for the neighbourhood. Like, so to just discuss with the neighbours: How can we make the neighbourhood a place that is joyful and that we love? And how can we all contribute to make this neighbourhood a nice place where everybody feels welcome and we can all be together and create this unity, this community feeling that we have felt here very strongly?

Now continue to the next courtyard at Vårvädersvägen 4 A. Once you’ve walked through the passage with John Wipp’s work Bläddran, turn left onto the path and continue straight ahead until you reach Vårvädersvägen 4 A, then turn right into the courtyard.

7. Courtyard, Vårvädersvägen 4

‘The Scanian tradition of enclosed courtyards was a source of inspiration for the architects who designed Klostergården. The original Klostergården by the monastery church in the centre of Lund had been laid out in this way. The pergolas in several of the neighbourhoods are reminiscent of monastic architecture.’

My name is Ola Fornling and I am 49 years old and I work as a minister here in the Swedish Church, the Holy Spirit parish. I think Klostergården is unique in an exciting way, both in its aesthetics and in its atmosphere and environment. Here you get very close to people. It’s a little more dense, and because people don’t have gardens, my theory is that people also move around a lot more in the common space here – it becomes everyone’s common space.

There are a number of public artworks in Klostergården that are hidden in the courtyards and form part of people’s everyday lives. After the Parliament decided in 1961 to grant favourable loans for the construction of new residential areas, provided that 1 percent of the budget was designated for art, public art often became part of larger construction projects. At Klostergården, this had a major impact on the construction of the courtyards, where public art played a major role already in the 1960s.

In this courtyard is another public artwork, Singlande slant, by Jörgen Fogelquist, also from 1967. It is made of seven extremely heavyweight round plates of steel from Kockums shipyard in Malmö. The work references Pop Art, and its monumental scale emphasises the sculpture’s rolling movement despite its static form. It was conceived as a contrast to the rigour of the architecture, which is characteristic of Klostergården. Does this work have a sound? Does the sound in the courtyard resonate in another way with seven heavy, metal plates present?

Nina Lindström describes how she grew up climbing on these ‘rolling coins’, and Hampus Nygren, who owns the silversmithy Liebling & Liebling, talks about living in the same courtyard as the artwork.

There is a bit of art in every courtyard. There are some big black round wheels. There were lots of things you could climb on.

I’m Hampus Nygren, 48 years old. I work here at Liebling & Liebling doing silversmithing. I lived at another housing association here before. There was a piece of art in the centre with coins I think lying against each other. It is a very special piece of art. But after I looked at them, I realised that there are some all around Klostergården. I also noticed when I lived there that there were little tours that looked at these works of art. I was so used to these very special works of art standing in the middle of the courtyard. So I didn’t really think about them, but then I realised that this was something to walk around and look at.

In addition to these two works, there are five other public artworks at Klostergården. You will find Lyftande månfarkost from 1969, by Carl Magnus, at Klostergården’s School on Nordanvägen. Gårdfarihandlare, by Gunnel Frieberg, has stood in Klostergården’s centre and shopping square since 1985. At Klostergården’s library, you will find the interior work Utflykten by Charlotte Walentin, which has been creating another universe since 2014. The monumental work Station by Tiril Hasselknippe, which was unveiled in 2018, can be found at Arenatorget. This work, Listening to the city, is the seventh public artwork in Klostergården.

Now the tour continues. The next stop is at Klostergården’s School. Take a right when you come out of the courtyard of Vårvädersvägen 4, then go left and follow the path around the football pitch until you reach the school.

8. Klostergården’s School

Klostergården’s School lies in silence, only to erupt in a cacophony of voices of many ages when the bell rings. Here we’ll listen to stories about the time Klostergården’s after-school club won silver in the chess championships in Stockholm. And about the time the rapper Timbuktu performed during the school’s International Week.

My name is Hossein Karbasi and I am 68 years old. I have been working here at Klostergården’s School for about 35 years as a youth worker-slash-recreational teacher. I can’t leave this International Week on the Friday when we have festivities: 300 children dress up as carnival groups from different countries all over the world. And so we walk around. We have a samba band at the front. We go around the whole Klostergården. And people stand and applaud and wave to us. And then there’s the sound, the children shouting, their countries. There’s the sound when we have children performing. When Timbuktu was here, they came from all over Lund. The small Klostergården’s School with 300 pupils can get Timbuktu in. For my own part, I think of all these festivities. The Klostergården Run, then there are 100 people who will run around here. And then I blow the whistle and they all run. The smell when we barbecue there, when we have different festivities.

When I was teaching fourth grade, there was something called Chess Festival. We played chess, we signed up for this tournament. We came first in Lund. And so we went to Stockholm. We came second there, in all of Sweden. So when we came back late in the evening around 11, the parents were standing here in a row with flowers and everything and applauded when we came down. I tear up when I think about it.

The last stop on our tour is the splash pad, which is located in the centre of the park Klostergårdsfältet. Follow the path beside Klostergården’s School, which is on your left, and about 100 metres ahead you’ll find an opening on the right where you can see the splash pad. You can go to the music stand or have a seat on the bench.

9. Splash Pad

During the summer months, the splash pad is filled with water, and for the rest of the year, the site is dry and resembles a stage.

An early June evening – a youth ensemble emerges from between the trees at Klostergården and unpacks their instruments by the benches near the paddling pool. One by one, the young musicians tune their instruments and get ready for soundcheck. Curious passers-by stop and watch the soundcheck while the sound of footsteps on the concrete creates a brief moment of dissonance.

The musicians form a semicircle in the centre of the dried-up splash pad, which is loud during the months when there is water in the pool, with the noise of the fountain and the loud voices of bathing children. But right now it is rather quiet.

Young people from the Kulturskolan are lined up and the nervousness can be felt as vibrations on the wind.

Sit down on the grass or on the bench and imagine that you are waiting for the young musicians to take over the improvised stage that is the dry splash pad. Around you, the grass is filled with passers-by, residents of Klostergården and other spectators, all focusing on the splash pad. The musicians are dressed in black and white, and one by one they enter the splash pad in concentration. Now only the wind and the birds above Klostergården can be heard, as well as voices in the distance. The music school’s orchestra is introduced and will now perform its interpretation of the Klostergården soundscape. The two conductors from the Kulturskolan, Anna Svensson and Ako Aref, begin the piece by holding up small pieces of paper with drawings on them; these are used to conduct the ensemble through a new composition that is not written as sheet music. It becomes a series of performative gestures: hands holding the pieces of paper gradually move up and down, back and forth – while violins are blown into, cello strings are struck hard and unusual orchestral sounds are made that mix with the real sounds of Klostergården. In a moment, you will hear the Kulturskolan Kammarorkestern’s rendition of the sounds of Klostergården.

The orchestra leaves the splash pad, groups disperse and people move on into the summer evening, having shared this moment. Klostergården now has its own orchestral music, and the music is like the site: complex and thoroughly its own.

You have been listening to Listening to the city – a soundwalk, which is the sound and story of a district, a site and what contributes to shaping it. The soundwalk is part of the public artwork of the same name created in collaboration between the artists Maj Hasager and Ask Kæreby, residents of Klostergården and Kulturskolan in Lund. The work is produced in collaboration with Lunds konsthall and commissioned by Lund City Council.