As Below, Above

 

If you've learned anything from these interminable posts about the Stockholm Tunnelbana, it's that I like a theme.  It doesn't have to be rigid, but I do like there to be consistency in The Art of the station.  Näckrosen has two themes which don't mesh together, a clash between history and creativity.

Näckrosen means water lily and is the name of a local park, so the artist Lizzie Olsson Arle took that as her inspiration.  There are green leaves and soft blues and pebbles to give the impression that you're at the bottom of a pond, and it's all very pretty.  Not what I'd call inspiring, personally, but pretty.

The problem is, Näckrosen is also the home of Filmstaden Råsunda, Sweden's premier movie making studio for most of the 20th century, so they rightfully want to commemorate that too.  It means that in amongst the soft watery imagery you get cases full of memorabilia.

Sweden has of course contributed greatly to world cinema, with the likes of Stellan Skarsgård, Bibi Andersson, and the Bergmans, both Ingmar and Ingrid.  One of the cases includes a copy of Greta Garbo's original contract.  To the Swedes, she is perhaps the greatest of their movie stars, to the extent that she's on the 100 kroner note (I am lead to understand; because it's 2024 and the world is contactless I didn't once touch a Swedish banknote the whole time I was there).  Personally I'd rate Ingrid Bergman much higher, both as an actress and a movie star, but Garbo had the advantage of disappearing into seclusion before she made any terrible films or had internationally shocking love affairs.  Ingrid was in Casablanca and Notorious and Spellbound, for heaven's sake, and also gave one of my favourite Academy Award acceptance speeches ever, when she won for Murder On The Orient Express; she opened dismissively with "it's always very nice to get an Oscar" (it was her third, she didn't care any more) and then spent the rest of her time talking about how Valentina Cortese should've got it instead.  (Ingrid was wrong by the way, it should've got to Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles).

I searched high and low for the tribute to the many Swedish Bond Girls but I presume it had been taken down for refurbishment.  Obviously you'd need an entire case to pay homage to Britt Ekland, Mary Stavin, Kristina Waybourn, Izabella Scorupco and the legendary Octopussy and Andrea Anders herself, Maud Adams.  One glimpse of Max von Sydow, pseudo-Blofeld in unofficial Bond Never Say Never Again, was the closest I got to my 007 fix.

I rose up from this world of underwater cinema (see, it doesn't mesh) to a small plaza.  The studio closed in the early seventies and was built on, though it is allegedly still a "Treasure of European Film Culture".  I'd never heard of this accolade, and assumed it was a kind of Unesco World Heritage Site for European cinema, but it turns out to be more of a marketing gimmick rather than something of value.  The UK, for example, is represented by Derek Jarman's cottage in Dungeness, which is fair enough, but also the Royal Naval College and Freemason's Hall because they've been background locations in films.  The Notting Hill Bookshop is there, ok, but so is the street where Brenda Blethyn lived in Secrets and Lies, and with the best will in the world, that's not exactly iconic.  Where is Pinewood?  Or Elstree?  If studios that are demolished and turned into apartment blocks are permitted, then Ealing and Gainsborough should definitely be on the list.  It pains me to say that the 007 Elements exhibition in Sölden, Austria is there, even though it's only been open about a decade and they filmed a couple of bits of Daniel Craig's worst Bond movie there (you heard).  If you want to declare a mountaintop building in the Alps where they made a James Bond film an icon of European film, then Piz Gloria is right there.

Incidentally, the Swedish for the road suffix Way is Väg.  Several streets in the development have been named after movie stars.  This means there are roads called Greta Garbos Väg and Ingrid Bergmans Väg.  Well, I laughed.

A few roads through apartment complexes and I reached the Lötsjön-Golfängarnat, a nature reserved that stretched round the Lötsjön lake.  It was approaching lunchtime and the park had filled with picnickers and strollers.  The playground - and I once again felt a pang of envy for the kids of today and their enormous, multi-level playgrounds - was swarming with excitable, screaming children.

I wandered amongst the rolling grasses, past outdoor gyms being used by people in lycra who were far too fit for my liking, and then across a small bridge at the edge of the lake.  Lilies were scattered over its surface and the trees shaded me against the hot sun.

I stopped for a sit down and a sip of water on a bench overlooking the water and allowed the locals to wander and jog and cycle by.  One man walked past with a cat on his shoulder; the cat was on a lead, and, when he got round the corner, he dropped it to the ground and let it wander over the grass.  I understand the ethics of allowing your cat out of the house are a fraught topic on the internet, with one school of thought saying that allowing a cat to wander all over the neighbourhood is irresponsible and dangerous, and another saying that keeping it indoors all the time is cruel and against the pussy's nature.  Perhaps taking your Persian for a stroll on a leash is a perfectly normal way to compromise.  Personally I think it's a bit mad, but then I'm a dog person anyway.

That's some normal sized swans sat on a larger swan statue, by the way.  Sweden isn't breeding enormous terrifying swans who can break spines as well as arms.  

I left the park and entered the district of Hallonbergen.  This was another 1970s Million Homes development, but this one felt particularly Soviet, with long rows of identical blocks running parallel over the mountain.  The presence of a piece of artwork on top of a raised terrace, looking a lot like a Yugoslav Spomenik, didn't make it any less Tito-esque.

I entered Hallonbergen's covered shopping and civic centre in search of the Tunnelbana station.  Once again, it'll never win awards for most desirable shopping destinations, but at least this one didn't have an odd smell.

Incidentally, if you've been paying attention to the many sign selfies throughout the course of the Stockholm series, you'll have noticed me slowly turning browner and browner.  I may be the only person to have a week on the underground in Sweden and come back with a tan.

Hallonbergen station has been decorated with children's art, and that sound you just heard was my heart sighing.  As I've said many times, I can't stand it when a lazy train operator slaps up a mural painted by the six year olds at St Mary's Primary School, Nuneaton.  They take a load of badly felt tipped pictures, stick them on a tarp and call it "community engagement".  You know what I call it?  An eyesore.

Fortunately Hallonbergen's efforts are rather more classy, which is what happens when you get proper artists involved (in this case Elis Eriksson and Gösta Wallmark).  They took the drawings of their own and local children then blew them up with projectors and traced them onto the wall.  It means it doesn't feel like a haphazard collection of nonsense, but actually more thematic and interesting.

Colour is kept to a minimum, meaning it's an interesting highlight rather than a scrawl of Crayola's Banana Mania that doesn't even stay within the lines, Sarah.  They also turned some of the kids' drawings into 3-D shapes to act as a fence between the tracks.

There's an four minute ride between Hallonbergen and Kista without any stops, an almost unimaginable gap for any metro network.  Fast and frequent, that's what you want.  The truth is that there should've been a station here, Kymlinge, and when the Blue Line was built they put in a station box and platforms.  It would've served a new district of the same name.  However, the 1970s economic downturn, plus a reversal of a decision to locate Government departments in the new area, meant it was never needed, and now it sits below an area of natural beauty unlikely to ever be built on.  There's a great video by Stockholmsjärta where he visits the station on YouTube - it has English subtitles - and his whole channel is worth watching if my antics have whetted your appetite for the Tunnelbana.

As though the distance between stops wasn't enough to disorient me, when we arrived at Kista, it was in the open air.  After a day of underground stations this was quite the adjustment.  Kista - the suburb - is built in the valley between two mountains and the Blue Line comes out of one tunnel and into the other while travelling on a viaduct.  

It sadly means that The Art at the station is something of a let down.  After red-painted caves and homages to prehistoric life a few metal poles sticking out of the platform seems pedestrian.  It's like something from the Green Line for goodness' sake.

I mean, fair play to you Lars Erik Falk, they're very nice bits of metal, and they're certainly better than anything at, say, Moreton.  It's just that by this point I expected better.

The plus side of Kista being overground, of course, was that it was very easy for me to know which direction the next station was in.  I walked out the exit and followed the tracks onward.

Being out on the edge of the city again meant more apartment blocks in amongst greenery, more footpaths, more service roads with bin stores and garages.  It could've got samey but the mix of colours and shapes kept it interesting for me.  Of course, it helped that it was so unlike what I was used to in the UK; this would be avenues of semis and driveways in your average British city.

Kista slowly became Husby and could feel the alteration.  Husby is another vulnerable district, and the homes became shabbier, the stores meaner.  Teenagers appeared, hanging out, not doing anything, mucking about on bikes and skateboards and watching me as I passed. 

Husby's getting redeveloped - largely because of protests and riots in the early 2000s - but it's still not there.  The new apartment blocks still overlook decaying older ones; cladding can't completely hide the basic concrete structures beneath.  What looked like an abandoned community centre, its windows broken, its flat roof peeling away, was surrounded by fencing and an optimistic banner with a smiling child and the message that they were building a better and safer Husby.

I hurried to the station entrance, in no need to hang about.

Below ground, of course, everything was wonderful.  Cooling and calming.  Open.

The Art at Husby is by Birgit Broms and is themed around the ferries that ran around the islands of Stockholm.  It felt odd to be this far out of the city and encountering an homage to water transport, and in fact, Husby is, by the standards of the region, pretty far inland.  It's fun to look at - and I particularly like the yellow ceiling - but again: is it thematically correct?  It feels geographically off, like if you decorated Edgeware station as a tribute to the docks at Tilbury.  Same region, yes, but not exactly local interest.

I do like the commuters on the boats, though.  They look remarkably dull.

The final station on the branch is Akalla, which meant when I went to the surface, I had no alternative but to come back down for another train.

It's a station with two exits though so, having walked out of the bus station ticket hall, I turned back to walk to the back entrance.

The station's been covered with a large podia on which high apartment blocks have been erected.  At their feet were tiny stores that reflected the diversity of the area - hair salons, takeaways, general stores selling exotic foodstuffs and phonecards to call home.  The pathway was lined with places to sit amongst the trees and small water features.  It was quiet and restful, a pleasing way to end the branch.

At the far end was a Lidl and another fountain and more shops.  You can have another sign pic, too, even though I've already got one.  I'm good like that.

Below ground, we've got murals.  Huge murals depicting ordinary people doing ordinary things.

Dancing, working, doing sport and exercise - it's a celebration of life for the working classes.  Birgit Ståhl-Nyberg said she was inspired by "Mexican muralism" but to me they had an air of Beryl Cook, with buxom ladies having the time of their life.

Akalla won't be the end of the line for long.  An extension is underway right now, taking the Blue Line to a new town at Barkarby.  A former airfield is being converted into thousands of homes and workplaces and there will be two new stations - one, at Barkabystaden serving the centre of the district, while at Barkaby itself it will connect with the suburban railways.  Excitingly, I could actually hear the workers grinding away behind the ends of the train tunnels, carving out the new route.

Akalla meant that both branches of the Blue Line were completely collected.  On reflection, I'd have to give the win to the Hjulsta side, the 10 service, whose stations were that little bit more exciting, but really, all of the Blue Line is worth your time.  Now I had to head into town for the last few underground stations in the shared tunnel.