Mertrohuset - Weaving public life into a brutalist legacy

This master’s thesis explores the adaptive reuse and restoration of Metrohuset, a heritage-listed brutalist building from 1965 in central Södertälje, designed by Hans Borgström and Bengt Lindroos. Södertälje’s city center is undergoing major redevelopment that prioritizes commercial functions and has led to the displacement of key cultural institutions. In response, this project proposes reprogramming Metrohuset into a public cultural center hosting a library, an art gallery, and inclusive spaces for social engagement. Grounded in architectural research, site documentation, and a series of interviews, the project examines how modernist structures ,often underappreciated and at risk, can be preserved and reactivated to serve contemporary civic life. Through the conceptual lens of “weaving,” cultural functions are interlaced with the building’s spatial logic and material identity, creating a poetic relationship between the architecture and the institutions it houses. The protected structure offers shelter to the cultural programs, while the presence of art and culture, in turn, elevates the building’s architectural value. Interventions such as daylight strategies, courtyard activation, and façade restoration are applied through minimal yet precise alterations that respect and amplify the building’s brutalist character. The project aims to highlight the social value of public space at the heart of the city, while also drawing attention to an architectural heritage that remains underused yet full of potential.