New Hasselblad center
Publicerad
Författare
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
This thesis has investigated how Hasselblad’s historical heritage
and distinctive design language can be translated into an
architectural expression for a new Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg.
Rooted in the city where Hasselblad cameras were first designed and
manufactured, the project responds to the Hasselblad Foundation’s
need for dedicated exhibition galleries, research facilities, public
amenities, and a venue for its prestigious awards ceremony. The
ambition has been to honour Hasselblad’s cultural significance,
clarify the Foundation’s dual commitment to photography and
the natural sciences, and enrich Gothenburg with a landmark
institution.
Iterative cycles of traditional drawings, digital and physical
models, and visualisations have been used in the study with a
research-by-design methodology. Charles Felix Lindberg’s Plats was
identified by site analysis as an underutilised urban node that
is close to both public green space and major streets. Volume
studies and early explorations abstracted key camera components—
the circular lens, the cuboid body, and the modular film back—
into elemental forms. Interviews with Foundation stakeholders and
scientists, excursions to pertinent projects, and literature studies
on embodied experience informed programmatic requirements and
spatial strategies.
The resulting design features a circular courtyard—invoking the
camera lens—as an accessible “oasis” that mediates between Avenyn’s
grandeur and the intimate interior. Inspired by the modularity of
the 500C, the underground galleries with a flexible exhibition wall
system enable reconfiguration and colour change without wasting
material. A research library, a photographic archive, offices, an
auditorium, a restaurant, and a café are unified within a coherent
composition of spaces evoking an abstracted 500C camera. Researcher
workspaces flank public circulation, visually expressing the
Foundation’s scientific mission.
This thesis has demonstrated how heritage can be abstracted into
architectural form to create a facility that is both expressive and
operationally sound. By integrating theoretical insights on sensory
experience and stakeholder needs, the new Hasselblad Center emerges
as a project in aligning institutional identity with spatial
experience—offering a study for future museum projects seeking to
embody their unique legacies.