The Malmo skyline, once clouded by heavy industry, is now punctuated by works of art. There is a vibrant, youthful buzz about the booming social scene, and the city is a pioneer of eco-friendly living as well as a leader in modern architecture and environmental design. Its iconic dockyard crane has been replaced by a soaring work of living art – the gleaming white 57-storey Turning Torso apartment building that has come to symbolise Malmo’s modern regeneration. The slipway is now a swooping, futuristic-looking world-class skateboard park, spread over 2,500sq. m and designed by American expert Stefan Hauser. And, at the other end of the cultural scale, a prestigious new national museum of modern art is to be opened in Malmo.
As Sweden’s third largest city, Malmo once boasted one of the largest shipyards in the world, but it hit hard times in the 1980s, when a recession devastated its industrial base and threw a quarter of the population out of work. Since then, however, Malmo’s willingness to embrace change and plan for the future has led to its inspirational rebirth. A key moment in this remarkable success story came in 1998 with the opening of Malmo University, now the eighth largest in Sweden.
As Ilmar Reepalu, Malmo’s mayor and a driving force behind the renaissance, says: “The most important thing was to get young people into the city. They created the base for a new life in the city with new cafés, theatres and music. We needed those 20,000 students to change the image and atmosphere.” As a result, Malmo’s population has gone from being one of Sweden’s oldest to one of the youngest, with half its 285,000 residents aged under 35.
The city of parks
Although Malmo has embraced modernity, it still manages to retain a charming traditional air. In the city’s Old Town, visitors can wander along cobbled streets and admire architecture from centuries past. There are also large swathes of greenery stretching across Malmo, which have earned it the nickname of “The city of parks.” Even by environmentally conscious Sweden’s standards, Malmo’s drive to go green has been impressive. The third largest wind park in the world, Lillgrund, is located off Malmo’s coast. The city has also supported the development of environmentally friendly urban neighbourhoods and was appointed Sweden’s first “Fairtrade City” in 2006.
Malmo’s sky-high ambitions and optimism is best symbolised by Turning Torso, the stunning residential skyscraper designed by Spanish architect and sculptor Santiago Calatrava. It is reckoned to be the largest work of art in Scandinavia, the second highest residential structure in Europe (after Triumph-Palace, in Moscow) and is 100 percent fuelled by renewable energy. It fills the hole in the skyline left when the 453ft Kockums crane, which towered over the city for decades, was dismantled and shipped off to South Korea.
Artist Ulf Hedetoft, who lives in the shadow of the remarkable Turning Torso, says: “When I was young, Malmo was a soundless city. If you were in the main square on a Saturday you could hear your voice echoing. It’s very different today – now the whole city is alive.” Hedetoft reckons the Malmo art scene is unmatched in Sweden, and he draws comparisons with Berlin. “Stockholm, of course, has the big galleries, but the culture here is growing and changing like nowhere else,” he says. “Maybe people here are hungrier. Turning Torso is a great work of art. It is a statement. It says, ‘We are going somewhere. This is a city for the future.’ ”
Since the end of World War II, Malmo’s population has developed an ethnic diversity, and now more than 100 languages are spoken in the city. This exotic mix is never more evident than when music-loving crowds descend upon the Malmo Festival, an eight-day extravaganza that this year runs from 14-21 August. Meanwhile, Malmo art lovers are delighted by the news that Stockholm’s prestigious Moderna Museet, home to works by Dali, Picasso and many more, is to open a second national museum of modern art in Malmo, putting it firmly on the international culture map. As Rakel Chukri, culture editor at Sydsvenskan, Malmo’s main newspaper, says: “This is the most interesting region in Sweden right now. More and more of my journalist colleagues in Stockholm are saying that Malmo is the city to live in. It’s got a reputation for being the Swedish version of Berlin.”
Lulea
Elsewhere in Sweden, the city of Lulea, 500 miles north of Stockholm, is making its mark in the world of music – with the new Mattei Festival, named after Peter Mattei, a world-class baritone whose hometown is Lulea. Mattei, of New York Metropolitan Opera fame, planned the event for two years and when tickets went on sale they were completely sold out in just 23 minutes. Apart from two opera concerts, the festival – staged in January – included classical, jazz and baroque pieces, and two public “Master Classes” featuring talented young opera singers. Daniel Harding, guest conductor at the London Philharmonic and leader of the Stockholm Philharmonic, performed a classical concert with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman, who has performed at Glyndebourne and Salzburg festivals, featured in a baroque concert; and jazz singer Kurt Elling, seven times a Grammy nominee, gave a concert with the Norrbotten Big Band.
The Mattei Festival is now scheduled to take place on alternate years at the splendid Cultural House concert hall, opened two years ago, and signals a significant step in Lulea’s development. Lulea, as far north as northern Alaska, used to be a city shaped more by a harsh climate and heavy industry than high culture. Today, Mayor Karl Petersen says proudly of the Mattei Festival: “There will be very few events in Sweden of this calibre. This is a high point in our city’s history.”
Stockholm
While exciting developments in Malmo and Lulea, demonstrate that there is much more to Sweden than just Stockholm, the capital city remains a must-see destination for most visitors – especially those making their first visit to the country.
Stockholm is undeniably one of the world’s most beautiful capitals, built on 14 islands around one of Europe’s largest and best-preserved medieval city centres. While lacking the scale of Paris or London, it is a vision of terracotta and saffron-coloured buildings shimmering between blue water and even bluer skies.
Visiting Stockholm on business or pleasure, you will be dazzled by the stunning and varied scenery that delights the eye in every direction, along with the city’s wealth of museums, theatres, sights, attractions and events. It is also a vivacious modern city, renowned for producing sleek designs, edgy fashion and world-class nightclubs. It’s no wonder that tourists flock to Stockholm for the food, design and music, along with a unique range of galleries and museums. And every year the eyes of the world focus on the city when the Nobel Prizes are announced.
Indeed, no trip to the capital would be complete without a visit to the Nobel Museum located right in the heart of the Old Town, the many exhibits tell in fascinating detail everything you ever wanted to know about the Nobel Prize, Alfred Nobel, and the Nobel Laureates and their visions that changed the world. Lovers of art can indulge themselves at the Moderna Museet, where they can gaze on one of Europe’s premier collections of art from the 20th century until today, with artists such as Picasso, Dali, and Matisse. The museum is located on Skeppsholmen, an island in central Stockholm.
Elsewhere in the city, works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya, Renoir, Degas, Gauguin and many Swedish artists can be seen at the Nationalmuseum, the nation’s No 1 museum of fine art and design, with its collections of paintings and sculpture, drawings, engravings, applied art and modern design. The Nationalmuseum is located on Blasieholmen, close to the Grand Hotel.
In the world of pop culture, 2009 was to have been the year a museum dedicated to Swedish supergroup ABBA, featuring 750 pieces of memorabilia, opened in Stockholm. Sadly, this follow-up to the worldwide Mamma Mia! movie phenomenon has been deferred by the organisers because of “project complications” and a delay in the renovation of the 100-year-old Stora Tullhuset building. But when it does open it will, of course, make Stockholm even more of a great tourist magnet.
Sign of the times
Take a coffee break at the Nobel Museum, in Stockholm, and you could find yourself sitting where a famous prize-winner once sat. Every year the Nobel Laureates begin their one-week visit with a meeting at the museum, where they are each given a white felt-tip pen and asked to autograph an unusual “guest book” – an upside-down chair. So most visitors enjoying a coffee or lunch at the museum’s Kafé Satir first turn their chair upside-down to find out which Laureate signed it. From now until 18 May, the museum is open from 11am until 5pm, Wednesday until Sunday, and 11am until 8pm on Tuesdays. The museum is closed on Mondays.
Guided tours in English are offered daily at 11.15am and 3pm.
