I
Every city goes through stages of growth when its transformation is greater than usual. At the time of writing Gothenburg is in the middle of such a process and the Jubilee Year is set up as a monumental marker of time. For this year the city council of Gothenburg decided to build a Jubilee Park in Frihamnen working as a testing area for sustainable city building. Several art and architecture groups have been invited to build the park together with the public. Among them were Muf – Architecture/Art who contributed with a sketch of a master plan and timeline for the park. One of the suggestions in the plan was to establish a public bus stop designed as a port to the park – enabling each and everyone to gain access to the space. This idea was never fully realized as originally intended – yet potentially a trace of its original vision is evident in the now existing bus stop whose name is Frihamnsporten – the port of Frihamnen.

II
Monuments are infinite echoes of the past, put up in beliefs, instrumenting the future – Sometimes invisibly melted into the landscape – and sometimes burning triggers of political debate. The monuments are often raised to tell us something to remember. They typically go beyond our bodies in two aspects – in space and in time. They are at least slightly bigger than a human body and the chosen material is normally such we see as eternal. In marble and bronze they are moulded to give an impression of eternity. The soap is a material that has a resemblance of monumental rocks but is a human-made material and has more temporality than rocks. We say that something is written in stone and assume that it is forever. What if a monument were to be moulded in soap – a material which fails to be persistent and has a clear effect on the human body?

III
Parthenon is the marble monument on top of the Acropolis hill in Athens. It is built on the basic architectural concept of post and lintel. This is a construction system repeated in many variations and could be traced back to as early as the Stonehenge monuments. The system is used to create large open spaces or for example a port opening. Today you rarely think about it – but every bus shelter in Gothenburg is built on the same principle as the old Parthenon temple.

IV
Parthenon has since long been used as a backdrop to support the idea of western democracy. Meanwhile the image of this white sculptural artefact has been domineering – so has human and western superiority. The worn and torn marble monument has continuously been surrounded by scaffolding and has been under constant reconstruction. Fresh cut pentelic marble is put into the monument to rebuild it the way it once was. Suggestions has come to use 3D printing to quicken the process. Then soon the monument could be seen again without its said to be non-tasteful support structure. What would a monument be though without its support – its infrastructure of gestures, expressions, rituals and routines which is part of how the building is mediated into our collective memory?

V
The public and free sauna in Frihamnen is positioned on pillars in the waterfront with the panoramic view of the river estuary behind. Its exterior is made 100% out of reused material connected to the post harbour area. Named as the “Church of Sweat” this is not how we are used to seeing city landmark architecture. When looking at Frihamnen one could ask – why build another palace for the people when we don’t manage to clean the river? In a space where the moss is slowly growing in the cracks of the asphalt the timetable is put back. When the speed of urban magma flows in Frihamnen again we are not counting minutes but we are counting years to avoid non irreversible consequences in the ecosystem. In times when monumental border walls are being built all over the world though – what does it mean to build a port? In the wind suction of these burning questions of our time – this monument is moulded in a material that fails to sustain. A portal that needs constant support when rapidly melting in rain and changing its shape by human use. It aims to be a tool to trigger debate, for prototyping, for documentation and reflection – and by that an attempt to go beyond the parole of the sustainable city.