Full steam ahead for £100m Swedish Nobel Centre

Stockholm has emphatically cleared the way for David Chipperfield’s £100m Nobel Centre to be built on the city’s waterfront.

The Stockholm County Administrative Board has granted detailed planning approval for the controversial scheme and at the same time dismissed all remaining appeals against it.

The project, which Chipperfield won in an international competition in 2014 and which is being led by the practice’s Berlin-based managing director Christoph Felger, has divided opinion in Sweden.

The country’s king described the brass-clad cultural centre as “very domineering”. Opponents criticised its location on a delicate site requiring the demolition of a number of historic harbourside buildings.

But the city authorities gave outline permission a year ago, since when the practice has been working up the proposals.

Lars Heikensten, executive director of the Nobel Foundation, said they were “very pleased” with this week’s approval.

“By constructing the Nobel Centre, we are creating the home of the Nobel Prize in Stockholm – an intellectual living room with broad public activities including school programmes, scientific conferences, meetings and events,” he said.

“In an era when facts are being challenged, when populism and nationalism are flourishing, the Nobel Prize has a unique opportunity to draw attention to science, knowledge, humanism and peace.”