Tuesday 14 December 2010

Vällingby

Having arrived back in Stockholm from my trip on the Silja Europa, I took the underground (Tunnelbana) to look at Vällingby, a famously progressive and influential new town suburb, built from the mid-1950s onwards. Aspects of Vallingby's design provided a model for some of the Scottish new towns - most notably East Kilbride. The Stockholm Tunnelbana is beautifully designed, with fine tilework in cool 1950s-60s colours and most stations are decorated with artworks. Those in Gardet (the station nearest the Silja Line ferry terminal) are ceramic works by Karl Axel Pehrson, depicting various imaginary species of insects, displayed in a series of vitrines.


 

 

 

 


Vällingby - where even the station benches are beautifully resolved pieces of industrial design:


 

The Fontanen cinema - with 1950s 'Festival of Britain' chairs in the foyer (visible through the entrance doors):

 

The shopping centre, designed by Backstrom & Reinius, another fine and very intact example of 1950s design with many picturesque details:

 

 

 

 


 

 

 




Vällingby Kyrka, designed by Peter Celsing and completed in 1960, is an exquisitely austere building, built of rough-textured hand-made bricks.