Väven is a

cultural center A cultural center or cultural centre is an organization, building or complex that promotes culture and arts. Cultural centers can be neighborhood community arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored, or activist-run. Asia * Cen ...

Umeå Umeå ( , , , locally ; South Westrobothnian: ;). fi, Uumaja; sju, Ubmeje; sma, Upmeje; se, Ubmi) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. Situated on the Ume River, U ...

, Sweden located next to

Ume River The Ume River (Swedish: ''Ume älv'' or ''Umeälven'') is one of the main rivers in northern Sweden. It is around long, and flows in a south-eastern direction from its source, the lake ''Överuman'' by the Norwegian border within the Scandinavian ...

. Väven opened in late November 2014, the year that Umeå were one of the two European Capital of Culture. Culture fabric will include several cultural institutions that have been moved from other parts of town, as well as some new cultural initiatives. Building costs, the collaborations that have formed and the relocation of the town library to the new building has caused debate in Umeå.

The Building

The building covers most of the block Heimdal and is located in central Umeå, between Storgatan and the

. Väven was built in 2011-2014 as part of the urban development project ''City between the bridges''. The client is

Umeå Municipality Umeå Municipality (, sme, Ubmi gielda) is a municipality in Västerbotten County in northern Sweden. Its seat is Umeå, which is also the county seat of Västerbotten County. Administration The municipality is an administrative entity defined ...

and the local real estate company Balticgruppen, through the jointly owned company Väven in Umeå AB. Väven consists of two buildings which merges into one on the third floor, forming a portal above Strandgatan. The house closest to the river, south of Strandgatan, consists of four floors and includes a so-called "

black box In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The te ...

", with space for 400 seated or 1,000 standing visitors. The four lower levels of the building closest to the road Storgatan have about 15,000 square meters of area that Umeå municipality disposes of their businesses, including libraries. There is also a covered market hall in direct proximity to the Stora Hotellet. Level 5 and above is dominated by the U&Me hotel, conference venues and a restaurant in the Balticgruppen's auspices. The total area is 24,000 square meters, and the total cost has been estimated at 700 million, excluding the interior. The architects are Norwegian

Snøhetta Snøhetta is the highest mountain in the Dovrefjell mountain range in Norway. At , it is the highest mountain in Norway outside the Jotunheimen range, making it the 24th highest peak in Norway, based on a topographic prominence cutoff. At , ...

and White arkitekter, who also collaborated in the construction of several of the buildings on

Umeå Arts Campus Umeå Arts Campus is the name of a former industry area that recently (2009–2012) was rebuilt to house several of the arts educations at Umeå University in Sweden. The arts campus will be an education center for architecture, design and artw ...

. However, even before the inauguration the rather daring design in this context was portrayed as a plagiarism, since three vertical slums with similar facades already had been erected in Copenhagen in 2006–2008. The Danish buildings were designed by the Danish firm Vilhelm Lauritzen Arkitekter, which had nothing to do with the design of Väven. An architect from the firm however states that Väven is not plagiarism.

Activities

Väven includes studios, a children's cultural center,

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

s and Umeå City Library, the

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

Folkets Bio and the new Women's History Museum.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaven Culture in Umeå Buildings and structures in Västerbotten County