This is part of a big traffic junction in Stockholm called Slussen, situated between Gamla stan (Old Town) and Södermalm. The name comes from the sluice (in Swedish: sluss) between Lake Mälaren and Saltsjön (the sea), and it´s full of roads, staircases, walkways, passages and underground galleries, and underneath it all is the Underground station Slussen. Huge amounts of people, cars, buses and trains pass through this place every day, and I think most Stockholmers have a love-hate relationship to it. It´s effective and works quite well, but it´s worn down and faded, mended and fixed until it can´t be fixed anymore, and it´s a place where you don´t want to be in the middle of the night.
Slussen was built in the thirties, and it still looks pretty much the same, only now it´s beginning to give in to the muddy bottom of Lake Mälaren. Heavy trucks can´t drive here anymore, and some of the bridges had to be strengthened to at least let the local buses pass. The City took a decision to build a new Slussen, only the people of Stockholm can never agree on how this new place should look. Architect after architect has left their suggestions, but the cons always seem to outnumber the pros of every model…
The only sure thing about this place is that it will be torn down and replaced by something else, so i decided to draw it before it´s too late. I hope to make some more drawings before the autumn rain and cold sets in.
16 x 19,5 cm, PITT artist pens and Tombow ABT on Fabriano Rosapina printing paper (sketchbook page).