Oskar Nordell

Nordell is a PhD candidate and teacher at the Department of Art History. Interests include a broad take on architectural history, but with a special focus on urban development, the relationship between public and private in architecture, and the processes that control and frame the development of the city. His work shows a special attention to the cities of Rome and Istanbul. Nordell also teaches in the fields of visual culture and visual presentation in theory and practice.

The dissertation goes under the working title Stadium Frenzy: Architecture, Urban Design, and Function in Contemporary Swedish Sport Stadiums. The aim of the project is to describe and analyze contemporary Swedish stadium architecture. More specifically to analyze the architecture and urban design features in contemporary stadium design; the conditions and the motives behind the stadiums constructions; and how the venues and connected spaces are used by cities, operators and visitors. Multifunctional sport stadiums are monumental buildings that can impact vicinity and cities in a number of ways, both positive and negative. Stadiums are often loaded with intentions of economic prosperity, possibilities of place- and city branding, and with symbolic features both in the form of iconic architecture and as sites for identity production for a number of recipients. Since the turn of the millennia a boom in stadium construction is evident in Sweden, as well as internationally. As the stadium is an international building type the project will be at the intersection where global and transnational trends meets locally based practice, against a background of global economical and socio-political contexts. Theoretically the project is based in the relationship between city, space and place expressed through territorialism, and a phenomenological approach to contemporary architecture analysis. In the form of a four-fold case study each case is further theorized regarding the concepts of commercialization/commodification of space; place- and city branding; urban design practices; and identity construction.