The secret knitters and the Greymena story of a little colourful revolution

by: Olafia Zoega

64°08′N 21°56′W103.000 km2

320 000 inhabitants

= Iceland

Iceland is a peaceful country.It has hardly any trees.But a lot of sheep.

It was settled around 900 ac. by young Norwegians mostly, who were escaping hardship back home.........

In 1262 the Icelanders surrendered to the king of Norway after decades of internal battles.

It stayed Norwegian until 1380 when Norway went under Denmark after the male Royal line died out.

After gradually gaining more and more independance Iceland became a free country on the 17th of June 1944.

This was a community of peasants living in turf houses that kept them warm during the cool summers and in the relentless winter storms.

There was hardly any urban settlement on the country but in 1786 Reykjavík was granted capital status and started growing rapidly.

Earthquakes and volcanic eruption has always played a big part in the life of the Icelanders and often caused them grief.

The 20th century was a very colourful time. It was the time Icelanders stepped out of farmlife and into Wall Street with great plans of taking over the world.

One recession followed the other and the great global resession of 1929 lasted until the second world war.

Then came war-money (that did not last very long) and the Americans set up base in Keflavik where they stayed for the next 60 years.

Most of the recessions were linked to the fisheries in one way or the other but after a crisis in the beginning of the nineties things were looking up.

O-ooo

But late 20th century things started really to turn for the worse. Iceland was on it´s way up in the world. It was the party capital, the place where music and footballers bloomed and the place everybody wanted to be.

It became the richest country in the world per capital and privatization of banks, media and businesses was happening very fast. Globalization took a sharp turn and suddenly tiny little Iceland was buying up huge businesses in England, Denmark and all over.

The people were happy, they had everything they ever wanted, and if they didn´t the banks just lend them money to get it!

And in the background stood the Greymen, and watched carefully.

A Grayman

Sees business oppurtunities everywhere. Would sell his grandmother for the right price.

No heart + no soul.

A briefcase filled with monopoly money for buying Magasin Du Nord, Debenhams, Sterling Air and more.

Plans for world domination:

Buy up every business in Iceland.

Sell Iceland piece by piece, overprized.

Use profit to buy up other small countries, make them hip and then sell off again for great profit.

And so it goes on until they own everything and control the world.

The capital of Reykjavík has 120 000 thousand inhabitants and the greater Reykjavík area 200.000. That is 2/3 of the whole population.

In 1900 it had about 6000 inhabitants and since then it grew continuously. Suburbs started to emerge in the sixties.

1900

19421997

2009

It was always a rather low rise town until the end of the 20th century where great grey towers started to rise all over the capital area and the city grew with such speed that nobody managed to keep control.

These were the doings of the Greymen.

The Grey Capital

The country was sectretly being held hostage by the Greymen who now owned everything.

The media.

The banks.

The goverment.

But on a dark autumn day in 2008 the world of the Greymen came tumbling down.

An economical crisis hit the world and the truth about Iceland became clear. There was no money, there was no greatness..... There would be no world domination!

It all went away and disappeared along with the Greymen.

Cayman Islands

And behind sat an angry nation. What happened? Why did this happen? Where the hell is the money????

People rushed into the streets armed with kitchen utensils and protested! They banged on pots and pans and wanted the government to step down and they wanted answers! And the government put up little resistance and stepped down and a new, left wing government took over.!!!!

And grey and gloomy times hit Iceland. The legacy of the greymen was very visible.

Most of all in the capital of Reykjavík.

The suburbs were grey, the centre was grey... the people were slowly becoming grey....

All over the greater Reykjavík area you could find these dead places that were starting to influence the area around them and people living in the city.

News on radio and television all evolved around people loosing their jobs, debt of the Icelandic government, the Greymen and so forth......

City centre

And while some plots stood empty or half-built others stood finished with empty structures.

Luxurious apartments with a view to die for in the heart of the city centre.

But this “luxury”, was only experienced from the inside.

Nobody talked to the people. The government was busy trying to rescue what was left....

Finally people got tired of waiting....and took matters into their own hands....

Artists and engaged people gave some of their time for the better of the community.And this started to change the greyness.

People got smitten by this sudden burst of colour and activity. This new positive energy burst out in...knitting!

First people just knittet for family and friends, children knittet, parents knittet, single people knittet, designers knittet, firemen knittet, the mayor knittet, even the president knittet.

And it escalated.

In the city centre strange things started to appear........

Secret knitters seemed to be everywhere......

Early one morning... colourful trees filled a large empty building site downtown.....

A glass tower in the decaying business district was suddenly dressed in a wool sweater....

A concrete skeleton was covered in colours and patterns of all kind.....

A facade in the city center came falling down in a winter storm.

This was in a luxury apartment neighbourhood in the city centre where the majority of apartments were empty.

One day these facades appeared knitted in strong colours.

These phenomenons were now appearing all over the city centre.

old city

business district

harbour

industry

residential

residential

main shopping area

city hall residentialgovernment

new music house

And so the grey city started to change. The Greymen were gone and the left behind a legacy that was not sustainable. The scale of their structures and plans was not coherant with the scale of the city of Reykjavík and the speed things were planned and built ment that there was no time for consideration.

There is nothing wrong with building a grey house. But if you build only grey houses and construct grey places, the result will be a grey city.

Knitting these places is one way that people could bring something familiar into a situation that had grown astrange to them. How is it possible to knit these detached places back into the city structure? Is that the right way to go about it?

The situation and where Iceland was heading was detached from reality and then when finally faced with a very real situation, it didn´t hold.

Building a sustainable enviroment means taking into consideration traditions, culture and new and old mehods of creating. What has been built in Reykjavík the past decade or more is not sustainable. It´s already created great problems within the city.

When there is now almost a total stop within the building sector and a lot of architects and planners are out of jobs there is actually time to consider and think about what consequences our actions have.

What is really needed? And what can be done to achieve that..... in smaller but sustainable steps!