Bill&Theresa: 31-AUG—Stockholm III

Stadshus (City Hall)

Our last and final day of vacation. After breakfast, we headed out into the grey drizzle, ready to explore the Stadshus (City Hall). We thought of fighting it, but, well, you know. Instead, we simply paid for the tour. It struck us as funny that there was a tour in English almost every 30 minutes from 9:30AM to 3:00PM, but during that time there were only two tours in Swedish. They lead us into the “Blue Room”, and split us into two groups (since the group was far too large). Right there in the middle of Sweden, we had our choice of two English speaking tour guides: a Chinese woman or a Japanese woman. The Japanese woman spoke first, and her English was very easy to understand, so we went with her.

Council Chambers

They built the new building over 10 years, around 1920, because there was not enough room in the Old City to conduct the city business anymore. Anyway, the Blue Room was designed to be an open air courtyard, where they could have open air dinners, and parties. While that sounds chic and swanky, the weather in Sweden is usually either wet or cold, and sometimes both, so the architect relented and put a ceiling over the area. Then he planned to plaster the walls and paint them blue, but two years into the project, he saw the red brick of the walls, just loved it, so left them unpainted. Thus, the “Blue Room” is a red brick interior courtyard, neither blue, nor hardly a room. (And you wonder why I have trouble with colors!)

The ceiling in Council Chambers. The ceiling was patterned
after the Viking meeting houses. The Viking chambers had
an opening to let smoke out and air in, so they simulated that
with blue paint to signify the openness of their meetings.

We moved on from there to a long hall and into the City Council chamber. They had 100 City Council positions, but apparently they kept hitting ties in the voting, so that added a 101^st position. Thus they have 101. She told us the council is split 50/50 men and women, but I wasn’t sure how that worked with 101 people.

We then moved into an entranceway, which led to a special round room. For some reason, this room is a favorite place to get married. They do weddings every Saturday, between Noon and 6 PM, and they manage about 600. There is a “long” (3 minutes) and a “short” (30 seconds) program the happy (but hurried) couple can choose between. It is free for residents of Stockholm, or 500 SEK (Swedish Kroner)(about $55-60) for non-residents, and it is about a 6 month waiting list.

Frescoes by Prince Eugene.

Beyond that room, there was another hall that had windows on one side, with a view of the Old City, and a colonnade and an aisle on the other. The hall was used for official dinners, and could also be rented for private or corporate functions. At the time the place was being built, Prince Eugene, the younger brother of the King, wanted to be an artist and wanted to have a role in the place. So, they let him paint that far wall. He decided to paint alfresco (paint on wet plaster) a mirror image of the view across the river. After 2 years, everyone told him it was great, but he doubted them, and chose to do it all over, taking 5 years this time.

The Gold Room.

We moved into the “Gold Room”, which was completely decorated in mosaic, assembled from glass plates with gold leaf in between. The artist selected was 27, and fresh out of school, and this was his FIRST ever job. He said it would take 7 years, but they only gave him 2, so there were a few errors. Also, the rest of his career must have been a letdown! Anyway, there was some fantastic work in the room.

Not sure what's going on here, but it was their history.

The far wall had scenes from the "East" and "West".
For the "West", they had New York City and Paris.
It seems strange to me to have the US Flag in the
Stockholm City Council building.

The "Blue Room".

Finally, we emerged back into the Blue Room, where, incidentally, the awards banquet for some of the Nobel prizes take place every year on December 10^th. They serve about 1350 people at the banquet in that room.

Uh, not enough of any one column?

Got a problem with ivy, I guess!

After City Hall, we headed for some lunch and found a nice little place. Theresa chose the reindeer stew (poor Rudolph!) and Bill had fried herring (it was difficult to pass on the Swedish meatballs!).

Reindeer Stew!!

Fish...and Lingon berries!

After lunch, we finally did some souvenir shopping, and a little more sightseeing, including a “scenic tram ride” (scenic if you are on the best side of the tram and if it isn’t raining). Oh yeah, and we saw an open door to the Opera House, so peeked inside. We were told to leave. Well!!