The City Hall in Stockholm turned out to be a major attraction. Once again, I didn’t have great expectations for a city hall and once again, I was wrong. City Hall sits on the water’s edge of Kungsholmen island and has great views of Lake Malaren and of the other nearby islands. City Hall was built between 1911 and 1923 and was the largest architectural project of the 20th century. Over 8 million bricks were used in the construction of city hall. City Hall houses the Municipal Council with 250 government offices for the city administrative staff. The building is also famous for its grand ceremonial halls and its unique art works.

You can see City Hall in the first photo. They were doing refurbishing work on the left side where you see black tarps. The spire in the corner tower features the golden Three Crowns which is one of the most famous silhouettes in Stockholm. The Three Crowns is the Swedish national coat of arms. The tower is almost 350 feet tall and has tours and offers some great views of Stockholm. City Hall is a square building but has an open courtyard in the center.

The open courtyard is in the second photo. This is the center area of the city hall building space. It would have been crowded except for the rain. As it was, everyone was taking shelter under cover on the sides of the courtyard.

The Nobel Prize banquet is held every year in City Hall. It is hosted here every December 10th and has been since 1930. The Nobel Prizes are awarded at the Stockholm Concert Hall but the banquet is held in City Hall. Some 1300 people squeeze into the Blue Hall for the Nobel banquet. The Blue Hall is in the third photo below, lower left area. Why isn’t the Blue Hall blue? That’s what I asked our city hall guide. Evidently the architect planned to paint the bricks blue but later changed his mind. He did not, however, change the name of the hall. Go figure! Each diner at the banquet is limited to a certain number of centimeters of space, and it’s not very much.

After the Nobel Prize banquet is finished, the attendees go up the stairs seen in the third photo and move to the right to get to the Golden Hall for dancing. Our tour guide said it was a rush to finish dinner and get up to the dancing hall where everyone has much more space. The Golden Hall was actually much more impressive a room with its 18 million gold mosaic tiles. It is a fabulous room. I wouldn’t mind doing some dancing there myself. The art works of various kinds were really great in this hall. It certainly didn’t seem like I was in a city hall room.

The art work at one end of the Golden Hall can be seen in the last photo. I looked at it for quite a while and must say that it is an interesting piece of art.