Inga Svala Thorsdottir
A draft for Borg
The Borg exhibition involves a draft plan for a new city of a million inhabitants. Borg represents an idea for an urban community that I believe would benefit both Iceland and the Icelandic people. I think it fitting to use Borg (lit. Metropolis in modern Icelandic) as the name for this new municipal plan, since it was also the name of the first farmhouse in Borgarfjörður which built by the early Icelandic settler Skallagrímur Kveldúlfsson in the ninth century.
The areas I have chosen to use for Borg are in Borgarfjörður, and on the north coast of the Snæfell peninsula, both in western Iceland. These areas contain all the fundamental necessities needed to sustain life, in other words clean air and more than enough water. A particular feature of this area is that it also contains a great deal of hot water, but at the same time has the advantage of being less likely to be troubled by geological disturbances than many other areas in Iceland. The natural landscape of Borgarfjörður and Breiðafjörður contains a wide variety of environments. Furthermore, agriculture has flourished here for centuries and the fishing from this area has always been good. It is also possible to produce and use more energy here than has been done up until this point. These are only a few of the factual reasons for why this area is not only desirable but also ideal for the site for a new world city.
Every single day in the world at large, almost three hundred thousand people move out of the countryside into the city. This mass migration of people demands new environmentally-friendly, human and practical solutions in city development. Innovations and the development of acceptable solutions in this field will be one of the main forms of work undertaken by the inhabitants of Borg.
In Iceland there has recently been much discussion about the sale of Icelandic energy. This discussion has been largely restricted to the sale of energy related to the basic production of aluminium. The construction of Borg will create a new market for Icelandic energy inside Iceland. In Borg, people will only use electricity, geo-thermal heat, wind energy, hydrogen power and methane gas. Borg will thus have a unique position in the world, since neither oil nor nuclear power will be used there.
Borg will be tightly built, carefully utilising all available space, and with mixed occupancy. This will give the inhabitants the chance to have their workplaces, schools, shops and service facilities in close walking and swimming proximity to their homes. The idea of having a close-knit settlement has even further advantages. It makes supermarkets unnecessary and provides a basis for the return of specialised shops. This closely-related, living and active community will simultaneously increase the security of the inhabitants. Video surveillance and other such security systems known to the urban society of the twentieth century will no longer be necessary. The ever-watchful eye of the fellow neighbour will be enough to ensure one’s security.
The architectural design of Borg is drawn from nature. In nature, we never find organisation and structure being based on symmetry. In this respect, Borg will follow the example of nature. Every single unit of Borg, large or small, will be unique, an individual project that will demand new individual answers. The innovations that result will be saleable commodities that the day to day life of the city will produce.
Borg will be divided into four different areas. The plan is for these to be situated at Bjarnarhafnarfjall in the district of Helgafell, at Eldborg in Hnappadalur, at Borg in the district of Mýri and at Hallarmúli in Norðurárdalur. The public transport map for Borg shows the rail system which will link these areas and also connect them with Þyrill in Hvalfjörður. This is one of the best natural harbours in the world, and will serve as the main harbour for Borg. Rail communications with the capital city, Reykjavík will naturally also be important, the Central Station in Reykjavík having a carefully-chosen situation at the site of the old fairground in Vatnsmýri. The international airport at Keflavík will naturally be connected to this rail system.
The project being undertaken in Borg is not restricted to the field of architectural and town planning; it also involves sociological aspects. One of the basis premises of the society of Borg will be a redefinition of the concept of work. This new concept of work will be used day to day in the urban community. It will deny the possibility of unemployment.
Merely increasing the population of Iceland by a million, thereby quadrupling the home market, will have an enormous effect on local economic and working life of the country. It will also be interesting to follow the development of the Icelandic language as a large number of people from other linguistic areas starts to learn and make use of the language in daily life. The Icelandic language will be strengthened by the increase in its use, and the simultaneous increase in thinking in Icelandic. The population increase will also have a large effect on the educational system of the country. The specialisation of the University of Borg will be city planning, architecture, transport, and not least, the interrelationship between the worlds of the city and nature. Cooperation with other universities in Iceland will be important, an increase in the number of students being an unavoidable result of the growth in the size of the area in which icelandic is used and spoken.
I have been working on this draft for Borg for some time, but much still has to be done before the construction of the city can begin to take place.