Every design for Kiruna

Kiruna is Sweden's northernmost town and the country's largest urban area in Lapland, wedged between the mountains Luossavaara and Kiirunavaara. LKAB has mined iron ore here since the end of the 1890s, and the mine marks everything: the streets, the horizon and the mood. That the town will hold the title of European Capital of Culture in 2029 says something about what it has become.

Around the town the mountain world spreads out, with waters such as Ala Lombolo and Tuollujärvi and heights such as Sandstensberget and Tuolluvaara on the map. It was on such ground, previously used for hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, that Hjalmar Lundbohm had the town founded in 1900. Not far from here the Esrange space centre was later established.

For anyone who grew up here the memories sit in the landscape – the first snowfall, the light that never ends in summer, the midwinter dark. A shirt with the map of Kiruna becomes a way of keeping that feeling with you, however far south you end up.