PICTURESQUE CITY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 409, 19 December 1932, Page 7

PICTURESQUE CITY

stockholm's CHARM STRIKING CHARACTERISTICS OF NOW MODERN CENTRE ENTERPRISING INHABITANTS Stoekholm's extraordinary charm is I in a large measure traceable to the j variety and the striking character of | its natural surroundings (writes C. . D. Holmsted, in the London Daily . Telegraph). J Within a frame of water, granite ! rock, and rich verdure, where Lake Malar flows into the Baltie, lies on a 1 number of islands and peninsulas, a modern city boasting of magnificent ' public and private buildings, musj eums, broad avenues adorned with monuments of bronze, husy quays, | lovely parks, theatres, and palatial | hotels. The islands, like precious stones, are linked with one another in a set- • ting of imposing bridges, which span i a confusion of streams, straits, and canals, all wending their way towards j the blue waters of the lake. Meri chant shipping passes to and from the | Baltic, while small ferries and launch- ! es are at -all times scudding over the [ transparent surface, lceeping opien ' one of the archipelago's main arteries of communication. Of all the islands, that which holds a dominant interest is ealled euphe- , mistically "The City Within Bridges." : Most of its north-eastern end is oc1 cupied by the R'oyal Palace, in Italian j Renaissance style, while at the westS ern end is the House of the Nobles, a | handsome seventeenth-century build- ■ ing, and the Chureh of the Nobles, 1 older by several centuries, which is the Swedish Pantheon. The buildings containing the Houses of Parliament and Bank of Sweden are erected on a small islet between the Royal Palace and the north mainland. Stockholm is an ancient city, but buildings dating from olden times are rare. Its inhahitants are bold and enterprising, and would rather direct attention to the efficiency of their public services and the splendour of their modern and up-to-date edifices. For instance, the town hall, which was opened a few years ago. It is probably destined to rank among the famous buildings of Europe. The hall, which is finely situated at the southern-most point of Kungsholmen, on the shore of Lake Malar, faces the old town. The interior of the hall is strikingly beautiful, but it is impossible adequately to appreciate the arehitecture without a knowledge of Swedish history, because tradition is inextricably .woven into the fabric. The strange red colouring of the Council Chamber is intended to give the impression of ancient times, when primitive men used to paint their caves with V blood of slaughtered animals. TI captivating beauty of the "Goldo: Hall," where the city now receives its destinguished guests, thrills all who see it, its walls of gold inosaic shimmering beneath soft tints projected through stained glass windows. But only the student can hope to read the story of the very "modern" — to the untutored mind almost barbaric — mystic mural designs which adorn the walls. They are intended to symbolise the development of all branches of human activity in Sweden. | No description of the building, however brief, could be concluded without mention of the exquisite relief sculpture in black granite, flanking tho main entrance on either side, wherein Gustaf Sandberg has cut in solid rock brilliant cameos depicting on the one side the city as it was at the beginning of the fifteenth century and, on the other, Stockholm as it looks to-day.