Swedish Grace tour

Swedish Grace is a movement of architecture and product design representing the Swedish interpretation of neoclassicism and Art Deco, in particular in Stockholm. This tour features many buildings from the movement, as well as other artistic features from the early 20th century.

Walking tours in Stockholm History tour Stockholm Main Street Quay palace tour Södermalm heights tour Jewish tour Environmentalist tour Millennium Tour Swedish Grace tour Lidingö history tour Military tour Haunted tour Viking tour

Understand

The Chapel of Resurrection, Uppståndelsekapellet, has clear references to Greek and Roman religion.

Stockholm has a rich architectural history from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. The Stockholm Quay Palace Tour describes the city's architecture up to the late 19th century.

Up to the early 20th century, Sweden was influenced by German culture, to the degree that the art nouveau style is called jugend (German for "youth") in Swedish. Jugend and national romanticism (with references to the Viking Age and Nordic folk architecture) were the dominant styles up to the 1910s.

Sweden's domestic term for Art Deco was nordisk klassicism, "Nordic Classicism". The term Swedish Grace was in particular used for product design, coined as the title of a table service by the Rörstrand porcelain factory.

With the Great Depression, the 1930 Stockholm exhibition and the 1931 manifesto acceptera (note the lower-case title), Swedish architecture and product design took a sharp turn to functionalism (affectionately called funkis) which, like Swedish Grace, featured bright colours and rectangular structures. Functionalism replaced the historicist ornaments with austere expressions, intended for automated mass production and affordability, and has been the dominant style of Scandinavian architecture.

Get around

• 1 Storkyrkoskolan (Stockholm Cathedral School). Stockholm Cathedral's School was founded in the 13th century, and moved to its current location in the 19th century. The main building was commissioned in 1666, and the 1920s annex is an example of Swedish Grace. The playground is from the same time, as buildings were torn down to give more living space on the overcrowded island. Since 1973, the Estonian school shares the same building.  
• 1 Stockholm City Hall (Stadshuset). The city hall, where the Nobel Prize Banquet takes place every year, is an eclectic building with references to national romanticism, neo-Renaissance, and Art Deco. The building was finished in 1923, and as Stockholm is one of several cities claiming to be the Venice of the North, the City Hall's exterior was inspired by Venetian palaces, while the interior has similarities to a Viking-age longhouse. Guided tours are held daily.  
• 2 Kungsträdgårdsgatan 8. Headquarters for Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, a bank.  
• 2 Tändstickspalatset (Matchstick Palace). A Swedish Grace office building commissioned by Swedish "matchstick king" Ivar Kreuger who owned up to 75 per cent of global matchstick production. He co-founded the Swedish film industry, and became a world celebrity himself, with the Matchstick Palace finished in 1928. The 1929 Wall Street crash and his death in 1932 bankrupted the company. The building has state-of-the-art technology for its time, with electric elevators, central heating, and decorations by Sweden's greatest artists at the time. The courtyard is open during office hours. Limited opportunities for visiting the interiors.  
• 1 Nobis Hotel (Kreditbanken). This 19th-century building got neo-classicist design in the 1920s for Svenska Lantmännens Bank, "the Swedish Farmers' Bank". Architect Torben Grut added the monogram SLB and farmer statues. The building is known for the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robbery, a five-day hostage drama which coined the term Stockholm Syndrome for a situation where a captive supports a perpetrator. Since 2009, the building is a hotel with a restaurant.  
• 2 Haymarket by Scandic. The building to the west is a former department store, named PUB for its founder Paul U. Bergström; and together with other buildings nearby an example of Swedish Grace. In 1917, Vladimir Lenin passed through Stockholm on his way home to St Petersburg for the Russian Revolution, buying a new suit here. In 1920, Greta Garbo (later a Hollywood star, portrayed on the Swedish 100 kr banknote) began work here. Since 2016, the building is a hotel, with 1920s furnishing and a jazz environment restored in the lounge.  

• 3 Stockholm Concert Hall (Stockholms konserthus). A Swedish Grace building opened in 1926, the home stage of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the place of the annual Nobel Prize ceremony, except the peace prize which is awarded in Oslo. The Polar Music Prize, founded in 1989 by ABBA's late manager Stig Andersson, is also awarded here, as well as the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children's literature since 2003.  
• 1 Casino Cosmopol, Kungsgatan 65. Built as the Palladium cinema, which was in business from 1918 to 1987.  
• 2 Skandia cinema, Drottninggatan 82 (T Hötorget). This 1850s building houses a 1920s cinema designed by the Stockholm Public Library architect Erik Gunnar Asplund. A beautiful and intimate setting. 
• 3 Kungstornen. Swedish Grace twin towers which were Scandinavia's tallest buildings when they opened in 1924 and 1925. Inspired by Manhattan buildings, they represent the Roaring Twenties, and the southernmost remains of Brunkebergsåsen.  
• 4 Posthuset Odengatan. A 1929 post office.  
• 5 Stockholm School of Economics (Handelshögskolan i Stockholm). A 1925 building by Ivar Tengbom.  
• 6 Stockholm Public Library (Stadsbiblioteket), Sveavägen 73. A 1928 Swedish Grace building designed by the famous Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund. The cylinder-shaped rotunda is visible from far away.  
• 3 Metropol-Palais (L'Avventura). A 1927 cinema converted to an Italian restaurant.  
• 7 National Museum of Fine Arts (Nationalmuseum), Södra Blasieholmshamnen. Sweden's national museum for European art and furnishing opened in 1866. The building itself has a neo-Renaissance style, and exhibits works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya, Renoir, Degas and Gauguin, as well as Swedish artists such as Carl Larsson, Ernst Josephson, C F Hill and Anders Zorn. When the museum was built, the Vikings and the Old Norse were romanticized as Scandinavian ancestors, and many works in the museum, as well as sculptures outside, depict Old Norse legends. The 20th century is represented only through industrial design, much of it from the Art Deco period.  
• 4 Svenskt Tenn, Strandvägen 5. A store for high-quality Swedish design, in business since 1924.  
• 5 Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet), Slupskjulsvägen 7-9.  
• 6 Arkdes (Arkitekturmuseum).  
• 4 Astoria. A cinema built in 1928. Since 2020 it is a restaurant.  
• 8 Stockholms Borgarskola. A school building which has been used for various purposes.  
• 9 Atlasområdet. A residential neighborhood.  
• 10 Sportpalatset. Once the site of a swimming pool, the studio of impressionist painter Bruno Liljefors, and Polar Studios, famous for Abba and several other artist.  
• 11 Röda bergen. A 1920s residential neighborhood.  
• 12 Blecktornsområdet. A residential neighborhood.  

Eat and drink

See Nordic cuisine.

Go next

• 7 Maritime Museum (Sjöhistoriska museet), Djurgårdsbrunnsvägen 24. Exhibits Sweden's long history as a seafaring nation. Remnants of the Amphion, an 18th-century Royal yacht, and a broad collection of scale models.  
• 8 Skogskyrkogården (The Woodland Cemetery) (T Skogskyrkogården). A UNESCO World Heritage site, famous for its architecture. The two architects Gunnar Asplund (who later also would design the Stockholm Public Library) and Sigurd Lewerentz were 30 years old when they won the architecture competition in 1915. All chapels and other main buildings are designed by Asplund, with the exception of the Chapel of Resurrection, designed by Lewerentz, the landscape architect. The site also features works of art by famous Swedish artists such as Sven Erixson, Carl Milles and Otto Sköld. With some 100,000 graves spanning 102 hectares, Skogskyrkogården is the second largest cemetery in Sweden. The film star Greta Garbo is one of several notables buried there. In addition to the large Christian Protestant section, there are also Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim sections. Around All Saints' Day, the cemetery is full of candles. The Swedish rock band Entombed made a photo session for their album Left Hand Path at the cemetery.  
• Functionalist architecture in Finland