ArkDes Collection: Without Borders

ArkDes holds one of the world’s largest collections of architecture and design. The 2026–2027 exhibition focuses on the encounter between Swedish architecture and the wider world. Drawings, sketches, photographs and models show how Sweden takes its place in the world through architecture and design, as well as how ideas, materials, techniques and people from other countries have shaped our cities.

The title Without Borders comes from an exhibition held at Mosebacke in Stockholm in 1957. There, a huge globe, with a borderless world map painted on the inside, symbolised a belief in international exchange and a more open world. Globes reappear throughout the exhibition: as symbols of the future in the Kuwait Towers and as a familiar landmark in Stockholm.

The exhibition looks beyond architecture’s finished results. It also traces the journeys, collaborations and exchanges of ideas that have shaped buildings, places and environments.

The exhibition changes over time, and the objects are shown temporarily – to be studied, discussed and rediscovered. Through Unboxing, the collection is opened up with the museum’s curators, bringing material normally kept in storage into the gallery.