Some dates seem to have a theme running through them. 3 September is a day for turning.
On 3 September 1967, Sweden carried out one of the most extraordinary changes in its motoring history. On Dagen H — Högertrafikomläggningen, the right-hand traffic reorganisation — the country switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to driving on the right.
It was a remarkable logistical exercise. Roads, junctions and signs had to be altered across the country, while drivers had to unlearn one of the most instinctive parts of everyday motoring. The changeover itself took place early on the Sunday morning: traffic was stopped, vehicles carefully moved across to the other side of the road, and Sweden began driving on the right.
There is another turn waiting for us in Malmö.
Dominating the city’s skyline is Turning Torso, the extraordinary skyscraper designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in 2005. Inspired by a Calatrava sculpture of a twisting human torso, the building consists of nine stacked sections which progressively rotate as they rise. From bottom to top, the tower turns through 90 degrees.
That brings us neatly back to 3 September, because the date is also celebrated as Skyscraper Day, coinciding with the birthday of pioneering American architect Louis Sullivan, born on 3 September 1856. Sullivan became one of the crucial figures in the development of the early skyscraper and is famously associated with the principle that “form follows function.”
So our links turn through both geography and time:
Sweden turns its traffic → Malmö has a turning skyscraper → 3 September is Skyscraper Day → Louis Sullivan was born on 3 September.
And there is one final motoring coincidence hiding in the date. Ferdinand Porsche was born on 3 September 1875. His name would eventually become inseparable from the motor car, giving Dagen H another automotive echo exactly 92 years later.
From Sullivan’s early skyscrapers to Calatrava’s twisting tower, and from Ferdinand Porsche to an entire country changing sides of the road, 3 September keeps finding different ways to turn.