The Swedish city of Varberg found out the hard way that it needed a new water tower. The local water system sprang a leak, and the city had to tap into its backup water supply, about 525,000 gallons stored in a utilitarian UFO-shaped concrete water tower near the center of town. But the volume of water inside that tower, built in the 1960s, was not enough to meet the demands of a city that has seen its population nearly triple to 35,000 over the past 60 years. The water company eventually fixed its leak, and taps started flowing again, but the city knew it needed a better vessel for water security.
That’s how Varberg, a coastal city south of Gothenburg, built what may be the world’s most stunning water tower. Cast in stark concrete and perched atop a small hill, the water tower has the unusual form of a long and narrow rectangle propped up on nine slender pillars. Scalloped along its lengths with subtle curves that recall waves of the nearby coast, the water tower is a radical departure from the bulbous and cylindrical tanks found in cities around the world.
Designed by the Scandinavian architecture firm White Arkitekter, the tower for Varberg has reinvented the water tower typology in the face of new demands and through new technology.
The tower has been operational since late 2024, but its design dates back to 2018, shortly after the city’s water system malfunctioned. The city and the water utility had calculated that the existing water tower had a capacity far below the city’s need, so they commissioned the construction of a new facility with five times the volume, more than 2.5 million gallons. “They also saw the potential of the site they chose, which was very close to the highway, for creating a landmark structure could really signal the town’s position,” says White Arkitekter’s Per Hultcrantz, the project’s lead architect. “They could have just went with a regular water tower, but they decided to create an architectural competition.”
The competition’s design brief called for much more than a simple utilitarian structure. Hultcrantz says the stipulations included the expected water capacity and safety considerations, but also that the new tower should become a landmark, communicating creativity, slenderness, comfort, and strength.
Hydrology and water pressure dictate many of the parameters of a water tower’s design, which is why many (but not all) appear to be lollipops, large bulbs of steel or concrete stacked on a spindle. Hultcrantz says the proposed site of Varberg’s new tower and its required capacity and pressure meant that its tank would have to be about 26 feet in height. Following a conventional water tower design approach would have resulted in what Hultcrantz calls a wide and flat puck. “We didn’t really like that shape,” he says. “We decided after two days of sketching that a long, stretched out design was the right way to go.”
Now, six years later, that design is a functioning piece of urban infrastructure, as well as a new calling card for the city. Easily visible from both residential areas in town and from a major highway running alongside the city, the ribbonlike spectacle stretches 615 feet long and is only 30 feet wide.
It also runs directly over a small gravel road that leads to a popular hiking area on a cliff overlooking the sea. In line with the competition’s brief, Hultcrantz says the design of the tower was slightly rotated to maintain that view and its public access, hulking like a grand gateway. “It’s a nice thought that you can combine this important civic function with the also equally important recreational function,” he says. “When you walk up the gravel road there, the portal motif is colossal. But I feel it’s a good kind of colossal.”
The tower in Varberg is also proof that water tower typology can continue to evolve. Hultcrantz says Sweden’s water tower history dates back to the late 1800s, when the first water storage facilities were built out of brick and stone, like oversize barrels or the turrets of ancient castles. These stood for more than 150 years before upgrades were needed. Postwar population growth in the 1950s and ’60s led to increased demand for backup water supplies across Sweden, and the increasing availability of materials like steel and concrete spurred new structural forms. “A lot of Swedish water towers are from the ’60s and they all look kind of like UFOs or mushrooms,” Hultcrantz says.
Population growth is again leading cities across Sweden, including Varberg, to invest in new water storage. “I think we’re in the third water tower boom right now,” Hultcrantz says. In addition to Varberg, Hultcrantz says other cities are launching their own design competitions for new water towers.
The UFOs and mushrooms may eventually fade from the landscape. Advanced design tools and hydrological modeling software are now making it possible for the design of these water towers to take inventive new forms. One new water tower, built in the city of Helsingborg, is shaped like a large floating ring. The Stockholm suburb of Hemmesta recently announced a sculptural vaulted tower as the winner of its own water tower design competition. The rectangular form in Varberg, it seems, may be one of a variety of new shapes to define the water towers of the future. “The whole water tower know-how is being rebuilt from the foundation again,” Hultcrantz says.