The Ight Fantastic You’Ll Discover a Nordic Light Like Venice, Stockholm Is Built on Water
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INDULGENCE 162 The Swedish capital is home to a dance music-festival poster 300 metres away. cobbled streets and colourful old Nordic Light Hotel, a Nordic Light In a moment of shocking clarity you’ll know two merchants’ houses, it is one of DJ-booking agency and a Nordic things: one, your fancy digi-camera can see better the best-preserved medieval city Light alliance of female barbershop than you can; two, Stockholm is among the least- centres anywhere, like a whimsical singers. In neighbouring Norway, polluted major cities in the world. set from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The ight Fantastic you’ll discover a Nordic Light Like Venice, Stockholm is built on water. The But what Stockholm does so well is z photography festival and a Nordic city fans out across 14 islands where massive combine the long-in-tooth with the A watery paradise, a bastion of tolerance and, for a few weeks each Light fish-oil supplement rich in Lake Mälaren meets the marrow-chilling Baltic. tousle-haired, the traditional with L Omega-3. Further afield, Montreal- But while Venice is hemmed-in, fussy and stuck the contemporary. summer, devoid of darkness, Stockholm is unfailingly inspiring. It certainly based jeweller Maison Birks flogs in its past, Stockholm is big-skied, understated Ferries and “hop-on, hop-off” a Nordic Light solitaire-diamond and progressive. In Watermark, Joseph Brodsky’s sightseeing boats make shuttling firesGARY JONES’ imagination engagement ring. There’s a so- 1992 paean to Venice, the Russian author (who around Stockholm a treat, and Photography: GARY JONES named office complex in Budapest, had nabbed a Nobel Prize for literature in the from Gamla Stan it’s a 10-minute z a real-estate company in Cape Swedish capital five years earlier), pondered ride to Djurgården, a green island Town. A Nordic Light oil tanker plies how the Queen of the Adriatic might clean up in the city centre of woodlands, our oceans. its festering lagoon. “I’d call Sweden and ask galleries, an amusement park DESPITE THE COWARDLY terror pop tunes. That’s true even with the popularity of come summer – experienced by In short, Nordic Light has long the Stockholm municipality for advice,” Brodsky and museums, including the attack on Stockholm in April Nordic Noir, the dark and stripped-back crime- Europe’s most northerly nations. inspired creatives, big business and wrote. “In that city, with all its industry and substantial Nordiska Museet, or and opportunistic scaremongering fiction phenomenon that has grabbed the world Only a tiny percentage of the branding bods, and there’s so much population, the moment you step out of your Nordic Museum. Founded in 1873, it from the far right, Sweden is a by the meatballs for more than a decade. planet’s population live under joy in light for visitors to Stockholm, hotel, the salmon leap out of the water to greet chronicles the evolution of Swedish bastion of openness and tolerance, But long before Nordic Noir there was Nordic Nordic Light, yet a perfunctory with the cliff-edge coastal walking you.” life from the 16th century to the of crisply designed homeware, of Light, the fleeting, subdued, horizon-skimming google reveals the phrase has been path of Monteliusvägen delivering Essentially, forward-looking Stockholm is the present day through fashion and safe, if boring, cars and of shiny sunlight on winter days – and near endless sun appropriated globally. cracking views of the city centre. Take anti-Venice. That’s not to say the Scandinavian jewellery, furniture and interiors a few snaps there, zoom into an image city sprang up yesterday: Gamla Stan (the and more. Its temporary but current ABOVE: STOCKHOLM’S GAMLA STAN (OLD TOWN) skYLIne. OPPosIte Page: the stReets OF gamla stan and read the words on an electronic “Old Town”) dates to the 13th century. With Nordic Light exhibition (“about 162 PRESTIGE MAY 2017 MAY 2017 PRESTIGE 163 indulgence 164 Greek roots, means “drawing with light”. But Södermalm has a dark side: much of Stieg Larsson’s best-selling “Millennium” trilogy was set on the island, fictional home to dragon-tattooed Lisbeth More than 90 metro Salander and bulldog journalist Mikael Blomqvist. Stockholm City how light shapes us and how we stations have been central Stockholm a doddle to reach Museum’s Millennium Walking Tour shape light”, reads the blurb) covers on foot, another enjoyable way to flit Map shines light on the locations a century in home lighting. decorated with about town is via the Tunnelbana that fired Larsson’s imagination, The ferry drops off near the metro system, described as the “the and Nordic Noir fans start out compact and kitsch Abba: The paintings, sculptures world’s longest art gallery”. More on the steep, cobbled streets Museum that’s stuffed with the than 90 of its 100 stations have of the picturesque Mariaberget foursome’s spangly costumes, gold and installations been decorated with paintings, neighbourhood (just beside the records and memorabilia. There’s a sculptures and installations since aforementioned Monteliusvägen phone that only the Abba members the ‘50s. Part of an egalitarian effort walking path), where Blomkvist’s know the number to (so if it rings, to bring art into the public arena, apartment looks out on the bay take a chance and answer – you spanning everything from the gleeful nuttiness subterranean creations broach upper level with silhouettes of the spruce stretching for a kilometre beneath a fiery, of Riddarfjärden. They might then could end up harmonising with of dada to pop art, with career-defining works subjects as diverse as women’s workers who built the station. One blood-red sky. mosey on to Kvarnen, the 100-year- Agnetha, Björn, Benny or Frida). An by Picasso, Matisse, Warhol, Duchamp and rights, the Olympic Movement, level lower, platforms are garnished The T-bana will take you to Södermalm old beer hall where Salander hangs automated Benny’s Piano is linked Rauschenberg. Attached is the Swedish Centre technological innovation and the with bold vine and flower motifs. island, just south of the city centre. Fotografiska, with her rock-chick lover Miriam to one in his home. It plays when he for Architecture and Design. A left-field highlight environment. The rough-hewn bedrock of many a world-class photography exhibition venue Wu, and Mellqvist Kaffebar, often plays, they say. in the product-design section is Heavy Metal, The metro is centred on stations carved out in the ‘70s was housed in a red-brick former customs house visited by the coffee-quaffing On the nearby island of the world’s first 3D-printed guitar, its aluminium T-Centralen Station (there’s an finished with sprayed concrete. built in 1906, sits on the northern shore. With journo in print, and Larsson in Skeppsholmen, Moderna Museet body an interweaved fabrication of roses and entrance opposite the Nordic Detractors said they looked like hell almost 27,000 square feet of display space, reality, before the 50-year-old is a brilliantly curated modern-art barbed wire. Light Hotel). In 1975, artist Per – literally – and this is true at Solna Fotografiska has held major retrospectives of writer died of a heart attack in 2004. museum, its permanent collection And while the ferries are fab, and much of Olof Ultvedt adorned the blue line’s Centrum, where Anders Åberg such shutterbug luminaries as Annie Leibovitz, Once a working-class neigh- and Karl-Olav Bjork’s depiction of David LaChapelle and Robert Mapplethorpe. bourhood but increasingly hipster- clockWIse FRom aboVE: the TUnnelbana metRO, the “WORld’S longest ART galleRY”; FotogRAFIska; HEAVY-METAL, A 3D-PRInted GUItaR industrial pollution features green The word photography, by the way, derived from friendly, Södermalm is great for 164 PRESTIGE MAY 2017 MAY 2017 PRESTIGE 165 indulgence 166 “LIGHT” BITES Search Amazon for “Nordic Light”. Top of the pile is cookbook Nordic Light: Lighter, Everyday Eating from a Scandinavian Kitchen by Simon Bajada. While there is a drive among Swedish chefs for healthful dishes, it’s tricky to turn up one’s nose at comforting meatballs, elk salami, pickled herring, cabbage rolls and potato pancakes Gastrologik: The focus at modern, minimalistic, Michelin-starred Gastrologik – early adopter of the “New Nordic” gastro-phenomenon – is on excellent, locally sourced ingredients. There is no menu. Meals depend on the provenance and quality of produce available that day. gastrologik.se Operakällaren: Opulent Operakällaren serves up gourmet European cuisine in an oak-panelled dining room in the same building as the Royal Swedish Opera. Its famed Nobis Wine Cellar is arguably the best stocked in the country. operakallaren.se Café Schweizer: Gamla Stan is a hive of quaint cafes in which to indulge in fika (“have coffee”), the Swedish equivalent a creative bite or a craft beer, minute – there’s an outlet at the of English afternoon tea. A popular spot catching a live band or perusing long-haul Terminal 5 at Arlanda is Café Schweizer, a family business independent galleries and vintage Airport). There, in a luminous grotto established by Swiss immigrants in the stores. For a one-stop-shop retail of silvery-white walls and blonde 1920s. schweizer.se solution, however, head back pine, you’ll find furniture pieces and Smak: Smak is the Swedish word for to the city centre and Nordiska kitchenware, textiles, apparel and, “flavour”, and that’s what one orders at Kompaniet, Sweden’s oldest luxury of course, imaginative lighting. this concept restaurant. Diners choose department store, founded in 1902, A big seller is the modern- three, five or seven distinct flavours (chilli, that’s housed in an imposing art classic Block Lamp by Finnish say, and truffle, and perhaps toffee).