Stockholm

May 22

Written by **Matej Gašperič**

Architect

The instant we stepped out of the commuter train, that brought us from the airport to the city centre, I knew I love Stockholmers.

The instant we put our foot in the city, I knew I would love Stockholmers.

We have just arrived from the airport with the commuter train. We oriented ourself with the help of all-mighty Google & Google Maps. Although we are basically at the city centre, traffic is sparse – incredibly spares for a 1,6 million capital. As we were waiting at the red light, there comes an elderly woman from behind us and... simply crosses the street.

Wow!

In that moment of revelation, staying there at the curb of the empty street, waiting for a red to turn to green, I rarely felt so stupid and ashamed in my life. What an idiot I turned out to be.

That simple act of common sense also revealed how the Swedes managed, despite the pressure from all over the world, to sensibly pass relatively unshattered through all that pandemic panic. In all the time we have spent in Stockholm, I have seen – indoor included - exactly four people wearing the mask. Of that, one was a teenager who obviously thought it was cool, the other was a female tourist from Asia, that were wearing them even before. The third was an elderly woman who was obviously of poor health and the forth the medical assistant at the vaccination / testing centre. There were some disinfects available but non of the anti-corona banners or notifications or stupid fist »handshakes« or drastic restrictions or crises psychosis in the air. People are socialising and laughing and hugging and... basically... live a normal life.

Obviously Swedes managed to realise the simple truth.

If you want to achieve for the people to follow the rules is, the best way is to make a rules that make sense and are easy to understand and treat people as the sensible responsible adults.

The short trip to Stockholm turned out to be a truly unjoyful one. Not only because it was quite a long time since our last proper city break or because it has been quite a while since we have been anywhere alone. Yet once again I realised, how I missed that, how fantastic it is to be on the road again. How interesting, to be confronted with a different people and cultures. We are all the same but yet so divers at the same time. And it is that diversity that makes it all so interesting. Therefore here are some Stockholm impressions I picked on the way.

Impressions

I always find the best way to get to know a new place to be just to go around and get lost. And when one starts to scroll through the streets of Stockholm, exploring, it is hard for one not to notice... the lights. There seems to be one on every window.

Lights

There are so many that it is obviously a thing for Stockholmers. But it was only when we returned that I come across the explanation. It is short but really well written. So rather than me explaining it here again, I suggest you to visit:

https://swedely.com/2014/02/21/a-light-in-the-window/

Since I forgot to take a nice photo of the scene myself, I also dared to borrowed their photo of the mentioned windows lights. I do hope they would not mind.

Transportation

The second thing one notices would be the overwhelming numbers of Volvo cars.

*One can tell that the Sweden is the homeland of Volvo.*

Which comes of no surprise since the Sweden is the home country of this beautiful robust vehicles that has for long been a synonym for the car safety. A bit more of a surprise are Teslas which, by appearance are the second most frequent cars on the streets of Stockholm.

*Two to one is not the exact ratio regarding the Volvo vs. Tesla cars on the streets of Stockholm. But it is getting close.*

Add to that the electric scooters that you can rent easily and pick it up literally everywhere and you have the Stockholm personal means of transportation basically covered.

*The small old house on the photo sure looks interesting and nice, but it is two electric scooters on the remote street of Stockholm that I wanted to point out.*

Regardless of preferred strolling around on foot and the simplicity of renting an electric scooter, the visitor of Stockholm is highly advised to dive underground and use the metro or Tunnelbana as it is called up there. As the story goes, the naked architect said to the – also naked – CEO of the Public Transport something like: “It has to be about rock” Being that an urban legend or a true story is not that important as well it is not important, that they were naked – which kind of makes sense since they were sitting in the sauna. The important thing is that they managed to make it a lead motive of the Tunnelbana stations and by that a city attraction by itself.

*At some of the Tunnelbana stations one truly feels like being inside the cave.*

To see the next attraction, you do not have to go somewhere specific. Outside on the streets and parks as well as inside the buildings. In the form of the monuments, memorials, contemporary art or abstract. They come in every form and size and shape. And they are everywhere. I am talking about sculptures.

Sculptures…

*Wouldn’t you say that she caries quite a burden on her shoulders.*

And sculptures are also the main thing of the cultural centre creatively called Artipelag.

*Artipelag open air sculpture exhibition features some impressive pieces of art*

… art & architecture meet at Artipelag

Located on the archipelago (who would have thought of that :) outside the city boundaries, it also serves as a Stockholmers’ popular weekend retreat, where they can also go only for a lunch, a pleasant walk through the nature combined with a piece of culture.

Artipelag open air exhibition where art blends with the environment…

*… and quietly interacts with the visitors.*

Being a cultural centre, beside the sculptures and food and walk through the nature, Artipelag also features some exhibitions and events.

But even without all that, even the building complex by itself also proves to be a worthy reason to visit the place. As the story goes, the architect told the clients not to expect another Bilbao, by that obviously referring to Bilbao’s famous Guggenheim Museum of modern art.

He kept his promise and what he delivered is a beautiful, kind-of-modest building made in typical Scandinavian simplicity and tactfully placed on the shores of the enclosed body of water.

*Artipelag black and white entrance that prolongs from the outside in – or from the inside out – dependently from where one stands*

Talking about the photography, we find out that there is another place that is supposedly a must to visit. Called Fotografiska, it is located at the shore on the southern part of Stockholm.

Fotografiska

An impressive brick building is supposed to be the biggest photography museum on the world. But apart from a modestly interesting exhibition of Andy Warhol life and work, it left us a bland impression on us and therefore mildly disappointed.

Much different was our visit to ArkDes museum of architecture and design.

ArkDes

Conveniently located on the island of the museums nearby the famous old town Gamlastan, it featured the interesting exhibitions…

ArkDes architectural exhibition tells also the stories of the presented buildings

… a restaurant and not to be missed museum shop with many interesting books and must-have – useless and useful – design items for any design connoisseur.

Toilets

With all that sightseeing, sooner or later one needs to search for and visit the quarters where even the most important dignitaries go alone. And if that is your first time you need to go, you can only hope that you are not in much of a hurry, since choosing the right door could be quite confusing.

Entering the toilet – which door to choose?

As it turns out at the end, it is all quite simple and pragmatic. There are no separated men and women toilets but rather universal one. Which kind of make sense and once again points to the Nordic inclination to simplification although the lack of pissoars might prove to be reason for slight inconvenience on the men’s part.

Another interesting thing about the public toilet is that you can pay for it with a credit card.

That goes for everything else as well so in all the days we were there, we didn’t need to change any currency into the Swedish Krona.

Having relieved ourselves, we once again took a hike at the shore. Admiring all kinds of boats, it took me a while to realise that we are actually strolling through proper open air boat museum. I find it a fantastic move for a sea faring nation like Swedes with such a long naval tradition.

Boats…

… and The Ship

Talking about naval history worldwide, one should not skip the famous Vasa. Even the Vasa museum building itself, I find it an architectural masterpiece. It is rarely that one building so clearly and sincerely communicates it content and purpose. Not even trying to mimic the ship by it shape it manages to create a breath-taking spatial illusion.

*Vasa museum building complex – architecture at its best*

And inside...

During my fifty plus years on Earth, I have seen many amazing things.

I have seen the Great Wall of China and I walked the courtyards of the Forbidden City.

I crawled inside the Cheops’ Great Pyramid at Giza, admired huge Saturn V rocket at Cape Canaveral and hiked through jungle to the lost city of Incas - Macchu Pichu. I strolled around giant Borobodur temple on Java, been riding a donkey inside the active volcano on Sumatra and escaped the annoyed mother elephant at Kruger National Parkin in SA. I walked all the stairs - mostly with kids on my lap - of Eiffel Tower in Paris and Sagrada Famiglia in Barcelona, admired gold-covered pagodas in Thailand, looked down from the dome of Vatican Cathedral, imagined the gladiators fighting at Rome’s Colosseum, searched for Nessy - the Loch Ness monster and many, many more.

But rarely something - if anything - fascinated me so much as Vasa, the magnificent, unfortunate flagship of the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf, that sunk 20 minutes into her maiden voyage.

Visiting the Vasa museum proves to be a truly immersive experience that one makes feel like stepping straight into the Davy Jones’ Locker from The Pirates of the Caribbean movie - but for real. And all that without all entertainment parks' gags but rather only by the magnificence of the ship itself and masterful side exhibitions.

Since the visit of the Vasa museum took much more time that I anticipated, we had to skip the nearby Nordic museum. We therefore satisfied ourself with only visiting the beautifully designed entrance that complements the old building which it is leading into.

Entrance

What always fascinates me the most about traveling is observing the people… and the slight differences in their habits and behaviour.

Cultural diversity

Beside Swedes’ many, that I have already mentioned and restrained attitude, another one would be, that the Swedes are noticeably more relaxed. The perfect example of that would be the mother who was calmly conducting her phone call while the toddler was climbing the stairs at Fotografiska.

The other specific, that I found less attractive would be their inclination for fake plants. Which are everywhere – inside and out.

If I would try to at least partly justify that habit of theirs, I would guess that it is because of the weather and the short winter days, that would make the maintenance of the plants quite a challenging and time consuming task.

I love a good humor. It is the highest form of intelligence. And that smartly hilarious ad board alone is the proof that Swedes are not lacking it.

For a full-blooded architect, a visit of Stockholm would not have been complete, would we not visited the school of architecture.

Architects factory

The impressive – obviously old factory complex – features some, well integrated and well designed, contemporary additions like ellipsoid pavilion in the centre complemented with an atrium that allows additional spaces to benefit from the daylight.

*The first purpose of the building was obviously not a school but rather a huge factory*

*Contemporary addition to old factory complex - an ellipsoid pavilion…*

*… and* an underground attrium; as in many previous examples the new nicely complements the old

Short but sweet.

All in all, a short city break to a Sweden capital turned out to be a very interesting and pleasant experience, I can only highly recommend and am looking forward to visit it again.