In 1930 the city of Stockholm arranged an architectural competition on the building of a new civic centre at the heart of the Södermalm borough. The building needed to contain auditoriums, a library, a gymnasium, a concert hall, a theatre and a public bath. The winning architect Karl Maritn Westerberg came up with a late neoclassical building composed of three volumes - thereby allowing light to reach the core of the massive construction. Building started 1936 - a time when functionalist ideals had started to dominate the architectural climate, and thus all overtly classical decorations were removed. Yet the house is not 100 percent swedish funkis either, but instead, the long rows of windows bring to mind factories in wake of Peter Behrens and German expressionism. Construction finished in 1939.
The pictures below show to some extent not only the fine crafstmanship put into details, but also the massive volume of some of the bulding's halls.
Unfortunately, this place doesn't look as good as it does in the pictures any longer.
