Flexible welfare architecture: spaces of more-than-mercantile relations at Grantoften Shopping Center

Abstract

Recent studies in Nordic and European architectural- and urban history have emphasized the importance of commercial modernism in the making of European welfare societies. However, as this research has predominantly approached architecture from a planning and design angle, we know little about the actual use of these spaces and their socio-spatial flexibility and capacity in negotiating welfare on an everyday scale. Focusing on four shops located in Grantoften Shopping Center, this article introduces the concept of ‘more-than-mercantile relations’ to capture the multifaceted negotiations and exchanges through which local actors mobilize the spatiality of Grantoften Shopping Center into forms of everyday welfare. Combining archival studies and ethnographic data, the article examines how welfare at a local level is negotiated through specific temporal entwinements of spatial locations and everyday practices of care. By reimagining shopping centers as spaces of care and community interaction, this article contributes to research discussions on the geography of care, emphasizing the capacity of everyday commercial spaces to shape and be shaped by welfare practices.