The citizens of a city might have different opinions of good & bad, beautiful & ugly, fun or boring, but they have one thing in common – the public space. At odds or finding a consensus, the public realm is a stage for constant negotiation. The New Beauty Council investigates concepts like the public, beauty and ugliness, what they consist of and how they can be (re-)defined, and aims to identify and examine the conditions which influence our  experience of the city.

We will study some of the institutions and authorities, such as architecture schools and The Department of City Planning that interpret and form a city’s appearance and functions. The New Beauty Council wants to bring into consideration new perspectives on how the public space can be used and look, not through promoting one single point of view, but allowing for new ways of experiencing the public realm and varying concepts of beauty.

The founding members of The New Beauty Council are, Annika Enqvist, Anna Kharkina, Thérèse Kristiansson and Kristoffer Svenberg.

The Swedish organisation, which we at the New Beauty Council are both inspired and provoked by, is, Rådet till skydd för Stockholms skönhet. Its formal English name is, The Council for Protection of Ecological and Aesthetic Matters. However, in a direct translation of the Swedish name it simply becomes The Council for the Protection of the Beauty of Stockholm, in short The Beauty Council.

The name indicates that there is a threat to the beauty of Stockholm and that the city needs protection to maintain its aesthetic look. What the Council considers beautiful or what the aesthetic and environmental values of the city are, is never defined, nor is the proposed threat. The New Beauty Council set out to answer these questions.