Stockholm City Hall
By Gregor Gosciniak

19 June 2005: Among Sweden’s 290 municipalities, the City of Stockholm is, with a population of some 700,000 the country’s largest city. Stockholm's beautiful historical City Hall was built between 1911-1923 by architect Ragnar Östberg and is one of Sweden's most popular buildings in the National Romantic style. It is the political centre of the Swedish capital and its best-known landmark.

Stockholm City Hall is dominated by its tower, which offers a panoramic view of the city. The building holds behind a stark but powerful façade an array of offices, meeting rooms and banqueting halls. Inspired by the palaces of the Renaissance, Stockholm City Hall was built around two piazzas named ‘Blue Hall’ and ‘Borgargården’.

One of the most impressive rooms of City Hall is the Council Chamber, which is used for the regular meetings of Stockholm City Council, held every Monday evening. The public gallery of the Council Chamber seats 200 people. The ceiling with its virtual opening was built in the style of a traditional Viking longhouse. The room is decorated with unique old furniture textiles.

The so-called ‘Oval’ at City Hall was created for the Tureholm tapestries, which originally came from Beauvais in France at the end of the 17th century. Today the popular room is used for weddings. Another interesting room is the Blue Hall, which is not blue at all. The original idea was to paint the room blue, but after seeing the wonderful red brick, the architect Ragnar Östberg changed his mind and decided not to cover the bricks with blue colour.

Since all plans of the building already indicated the room as Blue Hall, and since the name already was commonly used, it is still called Blue Hall. The Blue Hall houses one of Northern Europe’s largest organs with over 138 stops and 10,000 pipes.

Being the building’s largest room, the Blue Hall is used for the Nobel Prize Banquet. The Nobel Prize is considered one of the world’s most important awards. The prize was established by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel to call attention to the most important work in the areas of literature, economics, chemistry, medicine and peace. The first prizes were awarded in 1901. The prize can only be awarded to individuals, and no more than three people may share a prize.

The Peace Prize is an exception to this rule and can be awarded to institutions. On 10 December every year, the date of Alfred Nobel’s death, the prizes are presented in Stockholm by the Swedish King. The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Oslo.

Official city receptions are held in ‘The Gallery of the Prince’ which houses Prince Eugen's al fresco painting the ‘Shores of Stockholm’. The bay windows were created by J A G Acke.

Another important feature of City Hall is its ‘Golden Hall’, which contains more than 18 million mosaic pieces made of glass and real gold. Here Einar Forseth created a magnificent banqueting hall for up to 700 people. From its north end wall, the Hall is dominated by the ‘Queen of the Lake Mälaren’, which is representative of Stockholm being honoured by East and West.