Sweden (3) – City Hall @ Stockholm
Sweden is not a big country. Yet it made itself famous via IKEA, Volvo, (maybe soccer) and then —- the Nobel prize. There are many Nobel prize winners. Besides recently Bob Dylan refused to accept his award, there is also Marie Curie. She was born in Poland yet French respected her so much even gave her a “Marie Curie day”. She is the first female Nobel prize winner and got both physics and chemistry awards (very heavy weighted ones too in my opinion). Back then, there are no rankings, no impact factors, no paper counting, yet after hundreds of years later, people today are still benefits from X-Rays, Chemotherapy … City hall is the place to host the Nobel banquets. When you visit here, you feel the air smells real intelligence 😀
(on the way to city hall)
(the classical view of city hall from distance — sometimes, the terrible pictures from my camera amuse me. At least it can make the photographers feel important, haha)
There are a few memorable rooms in the city hall. The first of such is called the Blue Hall. The architect wanted this room looks like a plaza, so this room has a fountain 🙂 This room also has extremely high ceilings, and close to the roof, it uses clear glasses instead of bricks to introduce more natural light. This room has the largest organ in Scandinavia with about 10 k pipes. The wall of this room is not painted blue, but it is called the Blue Hall because the architect wanted everybody in the room to see the blue sky from the room.
(the Blue Hall)
The next big room is called the Golden Hall. All the walls of this room are made from mosaics of golden leafs, very shining. This room is 44 meters long but no furniture, it is so empty that is a great place for some philosophical thinking.
(lit up the paths everybody goes: the birth and the death)
Another interesting room is actually a hallway, it is called “The Prince’s Gallery”. This room has a row of black pillars. Why black? I immediately go behind the pillar to see. THAT’S RIGHT. The architect purposely painted the pillars black to direct the audience’s attention behind the pillars. The wall behind is painted with colorful scenery of old days of Stockholm.
(the secrets behind the black pillar)
The city hall only can be entered with a guided tour. The tour is 1-2 hours. There are English, Chinese, Swedish .. guided tours. I debated for a long time, whether I should go to Chinese and English. Then I selected a cuter guide to go with (human has dark sides :D)
There are also a garden and a tower outside the main building. The garden is right beside the water, very comfortable place to hangout and have a lunch. You can go to the top of the tower for the view of Stockholm. The tower has interesting steps and passes to the top. Then you see the German church, the Riddarholmen Church, Storkyrkan (church) and the ugly 🙂 conference center …
(the Asian-ish wall?)
(every window is a picture frame)