STOCKHLOLM 2013
This trip we visited both London and
Stockholm, cities Vic and have visited before -- this was our 5th
trip to Stockholm – so I was a little lax in my photo-taking. None at all from London which was suffering
under a heat wave and where we spent most of our stay in lovely air-conditioned
theatres.
I did better in Stockholm, though, which is
a hugely photogenic city.
The city of Stockholm is built on a series
of islands and the oldest part is Gamla Stan, the old city. This is a beautifully preserved medieval city
centre with narrow, twisting alleys, and lovely open squares.
Ridder Holmen is a kind of peninsula off Gamla Stan, and is home to
Riddarholmskyrkan, the oldest church in the city. I think it’s also the only medieval church
left. It was built in the 13th
century, but the lovely lattice-work spire was added after a fire in the
1800s. It’s most famous for being the
burial site of all but two Swedish monarchs since the 17th
century. All of the little additions you
see around the church are the burial vaults of the various royal families. Riddarholmskyrkan is also the site of the
only gargoyle I saw this trip. I love
his little crown.
Ridder Holmen is also the best place to get
a good view of Stockholm’s City Hall, famous for being where the Nobel prizes
are handed out. It’s a symbol of the
city and probably the most photographed building in town. The conference’s reception was held there and
you’ll have to take my word for it that the inside is spectacular because the
place was so mobbed with psychologists that I couldn’t get any good photos.
Not all of Stockholm is old, at least not by
European standards. Ostermalm, an
extremely wealthy part of the city, was developed in the late 19th
century. It was then, and still is, home
to the rich and famous. This shot is of
Strandvagen, a street running along the waterfront. The houses were built in the early 1900 by
the city’s 10 richest citizens. It’s a
safe bet that the people who live there now aren’t exactly poor.
And you’re not going to escape without another shop sign. This lovely owl stands in front of an apothecary shop on Drottinggatan, a pedestrian shopping street that runs from Norrmalm across a bridge to Gamla Stan. If you look closely at the lower left of the photo, you’ll see a real birds nest, which I thought was very clever of some bird.
Two of my favourite places in Stockholm are
the Vasa museum and Millesgarden.
Happily, I was able to visit both this trip.
The Vasa Museum is Sweden’s most popular
and most visited museum. And you have to
admire the Swede’s ability to turn lemons into lemonade because the Vasa, the
ship the museum is literally built around, was the biggest military boondoggle
in Swedish history.
The Vasa was commissioned by King Gustav II
Adolf to be the flagship of his fleet.
It was to be “state of the art” nautical design, with three -- count them, three! – rows of cannon on
each side, 64 canons in all. While it as
being built, there were all kinds of signs that there were problems with the design. For example, one stability test used at the
time was to have several people run back and forth across the deck 30
times. When the Vasa was tested, they
had to stop after 3 crossings because it was so unstable. None of the people doing the building -- and
being well paid for it -- wanted to tell the king, though, so construction went
on. (Military procurement processes
don’t seem to have changed much over the centuries!) The Vasa was launched to great fanfare on
August 10, 1628. Twenty minutes later,
in calm weather, it capsized and sank.
This first photo is the Vasa as it is now,
reassembled and unpainted. If you look
carefully, you’ll see several people standing near the ship, which will give
you an idea of the size of the thing. The
water in which the Vasa sank was very cold, very dark and had little salt, all
of which allowed it to survive so well.
The ship was reassembled from 13, 500 pieces and there were no existing plans to
follow.
The next photo is of a scale model of the
ship as it would have looked when launched.
During the 17th century, some
certifiably crazy people built a diving bell like the one you see in this photo,
and went down into the pitch dark, freezing cold ocean to salvage the canons –
their metal being the most valuable part of the ship. Basically, a man stood in the diving bell,
dressed in regular clothes, and it was lowered into the sea. As it went down, a bubble of air formed in
the top, allowing the salvager to breathe for about 30 minutes. When the bell hit bottom, the man inside felt
around with a hook until he hit a cannon, which was then somehow hoisted to the
surface. They knew about the bends in
the 17th century and had to allow time during the assent to prevent
it, so the whole process had to be done quickly. Amazingly, over 50 of the 64 cannons were
salvaged this way. No one recorded how
many of the salvagers didn’t survive the process.This series of photos is of Millesgarden, home of Carl Milles – Sweden’s best known 20th century artist – and his wife Olga, an artist in her own right. Carl and Olga lived there in the 1910s and 20s, and again in the 1950s. It’s a beautiful place, built on a cliff, with terraced gardens containing replicas and originals of Milles’ most famous sculptures. Milles spent many years living and working in the US and there are many of his sculptures there.
I took well over 100 photos here, and it
was hard to choose just a few.
I
picked this one, “God’s Hand” because it looked great against the clouds.
This statue is called “Listening Woman” and I love the expression on
her face. Whatever she’s listening to
must be lovely.
This one is called “Girl with Falling
Leaf.” I include it because it is a
study for what became a fountain in Harrisburg, PA.
This lovely guy is “The Thinker.”
These next three photos are of the house and grounds. If you look closely at the colonnaded walk, you’ll see an elderly couple at the far end. Later in the afternoon, I stumbled upon them kissing passionately on a secluded bench. It was my favourite part of the day!
Front view of the house.
Rear view with the informal back garden.
These
three shots are for the grandparents among you. They are a series of
three paintings by Olga Milles, done on the fronts of the cabinets in the house’s
tiny kitchen. The walls are covered with antique blue and white Dutch
tiles and she mimicked their style in the paintings. They show clearly how
quickly a baby’s play can go from laughter to tears.
Carl
Milles’ work was heavily influenced by Roman and Etruscan art and the house
contains his extensive collection of antiquities. I love it when a bit of
a long-gone life reaches out and touches me, which is what this burial stone
did. The inscription says, “ Flavia Agrippina, most sweet sister, who
lived 17 years. Flavius Brytto, her brother, made this.”
(See? All those years of Latin pay off once in a while.)
Finishing off is this shot of a bronze
statue of a boar. I am fascinated by the
human urge to touch things, and often wonder why people choose to touch what
they do. For example, when I was at
Drexel it was a tradition to rub the toe of a particular statue for luck before
exams. That toe was very, very shiny,
attesting to the strength of the superstition.
When Vic and I were in Verona, one breast on the (fully clad) statue of
Juliet was rubbed shiny. In this garden,
containing over 200 sculptures, most of them bronze and most of them in easy
reach, only one thing was shiny from being touched – this boar’s nose. Why him?
Hope you enjoyed this vicarious trip!
Jan Catano
2013
No comments:
Post a Comment