scandi-design::stockholm

Stockholm coolly emanates a dual personae of contrasting ages and stylistic manifestations that fluxes constantly from one to the other - resulting in redoubly pleasurable experiences...
as we hobbled along the cobbliest medieval street ever on Sodermalm to the realization that the smoothest rock in our bathroom sink at the Hotel Skeppsholmen must have been cinderella-ed over and elevated to high design status...

*****

from the gustavian nook in the 18th century mansion converted recently into the Hotel Hellstens Malmgard where the blood red walls of our room hosted a life size portrait of a lovely swedish queen whose royal spectre hovered benignly around all night...

to the artsy installations of the latest designer pieces in the anterooms of the Hotel Skeppsholmen where, in the dappled twilight, the ghosts of naval officers past boldly followed guests to their rooms...

*****

at the Moderna Museet, an older wing with small windows had oddly angled yet innovative metalplate shutters affixed to the brick wall for partially shielding from the blinding light of summer and the blowing snow of winter, perhaps...
and a short walk away near the waterfront, stands a most distinguished WC - faced in marble and with a bronze door handle, it evokes a mildly ghoulish mausoleum more than a contemporary public facility...

*****

from the barest of simple white bulbs on the most traditional oxblood stained batten board wall of an older dwelling...

to the gravity defying lamps in the window of a latest to the minute design shop...

*****

from the zen white on white on white of a single sprig of cotton buds in a ceramic twig wall vase...
to the elegant exuberance of a two-pink-toned spray of heather in a raw concrete planter,
the Swedes delight in their design sense like nobody's business [and hence everyman/woman/child's compulsion to the democratic aesthetic of IKEA the world over!]

*****

royal sardines and lusty tea for our culinary indulgence...

scandi-design::copenhagen

 Design Museum Danmark / Kunstindustrimuseet:: a reflection of the facade is woven into the carpet covering the courtyard leading up to the main entrance...

[the museum shop features the coolest selection of designy stuff and the museum cafe serves the most delectable hot cocoa!]

 *****

 the royal city of divine as well as mere mortal powered wheels in two of their many design permutations...

 *****

 from the venerable Georg Jensen flagship and the illustrious Royal Copenhagen store and museum next door to the luminous Designer Zoo with the largest collection of contemporary Danish craft and design, my attention was more often riveted by the ever happy and superbly designed danish men walking by with their bikes...

 *****

 from an elegantly simple yet visually arresting modification of balconies on this older apartment building [designer unknown] to the most slicing dicing edge designs from Copenhagen's sizzling hot architect Bjarke Ingels

this is my kind of can't-stop-licking ice cream town where the architectural offerings are truly deliciously frozen music...

 *****

 the charmingly thoughtful stair design for the lucky ducks to climb decorously out of their pond in the courtyard of the Royal Library and the lovely art nouveau-esque curved stone steps for those needing to find the discreet lavatories within...

*****

and on one of the oldest buildings in Copenhagen, the Old Stock Exchange built in the first half of the 17th century, is a coiling spire of the twisted together tails of four dragons symbolizing the union of the Nordic countries and manifesting an altogether uniquely royal danish design [by King Christian IV himself no less] atop a Dutch Renaissance inspired building...

elbphilharmonie rising...

if architecture is frozen music, then the Elbphilharmonie conceived by the Swiss architectural firm of Herzog and de Meuron is almost iced over and will soon be emanating from its peaking glass waves atop a former warehouse base on the ever industrious river Elbe...

the Grand Hall is cradled on enormous steel springs and terraced with seating for over 2,000 undulating around the centrally placed orchestral stage - all acoustically tweaked to perfection by Yasuhisa Toyota...

as the colossal ship's prow or iceberg landmark for Hamburg's gleaming HafenCity, the Elbphilharmonie also includes smaller concert halls, a museum, a 250-room hotel and 45 private residences...

[when we were here, there were guided tours to the construction zone within but we missed making a reservation and had to settle for a visit to the Elbphilharmonie Pavilion instead]

hamburg quirky

Hamburg was a brief but intense interlude between cool Scandinavia and familial Amsterdam...
and the Hamburg that we had to so quickly experienced was unexpectedly warm and welcoming, from our stylish guesthouse aptly named Schlaflounge ["sleeping lounge"] in a residential neighbourhood full of quirky boutiques and a secret restaurant with no signage - only recommended by word of mouth and where our hour long wait for a table was worth every mouthful...
to the Sunday morning walk down to the lengthy harbourfront on the Elbe river full of robust strollers out enjoying the fall sunshine and the determined revellers chomping along to an elderly rock band in the fish market cum concert hall that is the ever rollicking Fischmarkt...
to casing artist and anarchist-occupied buildings that ranged from be-happy-boho orderly to jungle-rule come one/come all flop-palaces...
to the idiosyncratic semiotics of a particular nordic-germanic culture that can be both gruff-gritty and coolly elegant, oh-so-dated and yet hyper-progressive, overtly sleazy in one area and understatedly opulent in another, ultra affluent but only sedately flaunting it, all in service for and by rough and ready partiers as well as hardcore work ethic meisters...
and all the more inviting to the curious explorer of this eccentrically enlightened "Free and Hanseatic City"...

***

***

***

***

en promenad i stockholm...

Empty the street in morning twilight

slithers, pushes into the distance,

gropes its way along city blocks,

cuts and crosses house lots and alleys...

*****

Rows of houses, grey-brown walls,

mouldings, drainpipes, balconies, railings,

baker's pretzels and grocery bushes;

level sidewalk stones as margins...

*****

Now, far off on the brow of the hill 

rises up a head that is moving,

and two hands wrapped around a cane -

like a mirage it rises up...

*****

 

But over there, and even higher

hovers the smoke-blue city skyline

there is the sun, the cottages gleam,

there is the breeze, flapping the flags...

*****

*selected verses from "Street Pictures" by August STRINDBERG (1849-1912), translated from the swedish by Lotta M. Lofgren, 2002.

 

stockholm standards

 ...Sweden is a hauled-up, unrigged ship. Her masts stand stark in the twilight. And twilight lasts longer than day. The way here is stony: daylight waits until noon to reveal winter's coliseum, lit by unreal clouds.*

[*selected lines from 'Epilogue' by Tomas TRANSTROMER, as translated from the swedish by May Swenson]

...and so Stockholm stands tall even on land - the slender verticals of the thousands of masts around her many islands are replicated in the lamp posts, the soaring columns, the flag standards...and certainly no less than in the statuesque bearing of her fair citizens!

around skeppsholmen...

The STF Vandrarhem AF Chapman & Skeppsholmen is a highly rated hostel on board and on land in a prominent location on the island of Skeppsholmen with a view of the charming medieval town of Gamla Stan...

[there was no room available on board when we were there, so we stayed at the lovely Hotel Skeppsholmen instead] 

some of the many romantic and eccentric vintage boats [each with its own information plaque of its provenance and seafaring history] moored along the shores of the island...

The towboat is freckled with rust...

It is a heavy extinguished lamp in the cold.

But the trees have wild colors: signals to the other shore.

As if people wanted to be fetched. 

[selected lines from the first verse of 'Sketch in October' by Tomas TRANSTROMER, from Paths, 1973 - this poem translated from the swedish by Robin Fulton]

[on the flight over (in October!), I read of Tomas Transtromer being finally awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 80 - he was born (and still lives) in Stockholm, publishing his first book of poems in 1954 and has since published many more volumes. I am liking what I am reading in translation but wish that I could read his poetry as he wrote them in swedish!]

 working boatyards on the more rustic side of Skeppsholmen...

Dejeuner sur l'herbe by Pablo PICASSO, 1962

[sculptural installation in the shady back garden of the Moderna Museet]

 The Royal Institute of Art [Kungliga Konsthogskolan]

[with the very cool Hotel Skeppsholmen in the background]

[this is one institute where I would love to be an art student again - while staying at that hotel!]