Stating The Obvious

 

When you're designing art for a metro station, there's something to be said for being extremely obvious.  Sure, you might want to put in a mural that represents the deep agonies of the human soul, or a statue of a bent wing to symbolise the fragility of existence, but people are only going to be on the platform for ten minutes at most.  It sometimes pays to be blunt at to the point.  If your station is named after a venerable scientific institution, then you fill that station with venerable scientific motifs.

Tekniska högskolan is next to the Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, the Royal Institute of Technology and one of the top Scandinavian universities, and as such its platforms are swarming with fractals, formulae, and other things I'm not entirely clear on because I only got a B in GCSE Science.  (Incidentally, if you're wondering why the station isn't called Kungliga Tekniska högskolan as well, it's because the "Royal" part is conferred upon the university, while the station only serves it so can't claim the same.  It's a pedantic but quite sweet little note).  

Lennat Mörk, the artist, was also a scenic designer for theatre and opera, which explains how over the top Tekniska högskolan is.  Apparently in the part of the station devoted to the four elements he wanted there to be actual flames and shoots of water until it was politely explained to him that it would be a nightmare to maintain.  Instead he hung a giant apple from the roof, to represent the one that hit Newton on the head and gave him the idea for mavity.

If that fell on your head mind you'd be crushed to death.  I think that's how I want to go.  He died doing what he loved; standing on an underground platform beneath a piece of elaborate art.

There are friezes of works by Copernicus and da Vinci, and polyhedra for the elements, and it's all delightfully bonkers.  If you're going to go crazy with your design, go proper crazy, that's what I say.

I emerged on the Valhallavägen, a long avenue of trees that skims the top of the Östermalm district of the city centre.  It was still early on a weekend so the road was largely deserted of traffic and people.  Behind me was Stockholms Östra station, the terminus of the Roslagsbanan, still clinging on until they finally get to build that tunnel to T-Centralen and it becomes a lot of lovely valuable real estate.

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you'll know I do love a stadium, and I especially love an Olympic stadium.  Stockholm hosted the fifth Summer Olympics in 1912, as well as the Equestrian events for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics (there were strict quarantine laws in Australia at the time so the horses couldn't be shipped over).  The stadium is the oldest Olympic venue still in use.

It's a curious building.  Designed by Torben Grut, it came at a weird point in architecture, where the elaborate Victorian Gothic styles were falling out of fashion, but they hadn't yet embraced the glamorous minimalism of Art Deco.  As a consequence, the stadium sort of looks like a Medieval castle, but at the same time, doesn't; it has buttresses and towers and arrow slits, but it's also elegantly understated.

They were in the middle of setting it up for an event so I couldn't go in and have a poke around.  It looks like it'd be a fantastic place for an event.  Stockholm 1912 was Sweden's only bite of the Olympic cherry, and it's hard to see it ever hosting a Summer Games again; I think we've reached the point where Only Cities Of Five Million People Or More May Apply now (unless Qatar decides to put in a bid, at which point the IOC will bend over backwards to accommodate them).  Sweden did apply for the 2026 Winter Games, with most of the outdoor events scheduled to be held out in Åre, and Stockholm hosting the indoors; they lost to Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo, meaning that bizarrely, Sweden is still yet to host a Winter Olympics.  

A large inner city sports arena needs a large inner city metro station, and Stadion doesn't disappoint.  The subway from the street to the platforms is a lot of pictures of wholesome Swedish people winning medals and trophies.  Over the years the Stadion has been home to football teams, bandy teams, and ice hockey matches, while concerts have regularly played there.

At the foot of the escalators there's a poster for those 1912 games.  As I said, keep it simple, stupid.  Olympic Stadium?  Olympic poster.

There's also a giant S, to point you to the Stadion, in the colours of Djurgården, who played there until they moved to the Tele2...

...and on the opposite wall, an M made out of a musical note, to point you to the Musikhögskolan - the Royal College of Music.

It's the central, crossover chamber that really captures your attention.

There's no real reason for there to be a rainbow there.  It doesn't mean anything.  All it's for is to be pretty.  But aren't you glad they did?

I can't imagine anyone wandering off their train, unaware of the station's architect, and not smiling when they see that.  It's pure joy.  I love the T-bana for making me happy in a thousand ways.