(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[10. August 2007] Today, the municipal election campaign starts in earnest, and the parties' various stalls are set up on Karl Johans gate – for intensive propaganda leading up to the election on 10 September. At the same time, the capital is facing its biggest transformation in 400 years, when the last plots facing the fjord will now be developed and profile the fjord city of Oslo. The controversial Barcode project in Bjørvika has finally been submitted to the urban development committee for consideration.
Barcode is the winner of the architectural competition in 2003, based on the city council's adopted zoning plan for Bjørvika. The plan determines how many square meters the buildings will accommodate. The utilization rate in Bjørvika is high, just as high as at Grünerløkka and Frogner, to finance the attractive sites. The square meters must be filled either along the ground or in height. The winner draft departed from the classic quarterly thinking, adding up to tall, slender buildings in slats with the short side facing the sea. Buildings should be built one by one and relate to each other, instead of forming large quarters and blocks. Juror Arne Henriksen emphasized precisely these qualities in the project, as opposed to what might otherwise be perceived as a wall against the sea in twelve floors high quarter blocks.
Four years later, the wind has turned and resistance to Barcode has increased. In the autumn of 2006, Oslo Left leader Ola Elvestuen used the word masonry, now as a designation for Barcode's tall buildings. 22.000 people signed an electronic call against the project, and Aften has run intense campaign journalism to stop the high-rise buildings. At the same time, the same newspaper writes that Oslo is full. Markagrensa discusses protection by law, and in Oslo West, development in apple gardens has been the local newspaper's safest debate card every day for years. More people are moving to Oslo than ever before, last year the population increased by 11.257 inhabitants. The municipality's calculations show that by 2025 approximately 50.000 new homes will be needed. Growth in population should be a joy for any living city, but Marka is Oslo's finest characteristic and many neighborhoods with detached houses should be just that. Then the logical consequence is that we have to build closer than today, in selected places. Bjørvika is particularly well suited to just that, as the country's largest collective hub and growth area for knowledge-based industry. Therefore, Barcode should be adopted as soon as possible.
But there is a good chance that the decision will be postponed again – until after the election. These days, the parties are doing what they can to avoid issues that they know are creating divisions in their own constituencies. The Liberal Party will use its opposition to high-rise buildings in the election campaign, the Conservative Party has submitted the case so late to the urban development committee that they know the chances of dealing with it at the meeting in August are small. Both parties are playing a political game. The game is lost by Oslo.
