Stockholm [antikvár]

The City and Its People An ambitious building programme has literally changed the face of Stockholm. In the centre of this 700-year-old city, classic towers and turrets have given way to new buildings with roofs as flat as pancakes. Offices have replaced apartments, forcing many former residents out to the mushrooming suburbs. Of Greater Stockholm's 1.4 million population, fewer than 700,000 live in the city proper. Stockholm's contemporary configuration is epitomized by Sergels Torg, named after the 18th-century Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergei. But the artist, who had a studio in this district, would scarcely recognize the place. The focal point of the new Stockholm, Sergels Torg now sports a multi-mil-lion dollar shopping mall. It has also become the city's main protest centre, where speakers rage against the tyranny of foreign dictators, cry out in favour of gay rights and women's lib, demand more day-care centres for tots and so on in an often carnival-like atmosphere. To begin with, Stockholm is widely acknowledged as one 6 of the world's most beautiful cities. Dramatically situated at a point where the cobalt blue of Lake Malaren meets and clashes with the darker hue of the Baltic Sea, the city has been splendidly endowed by nature. It sprawls gracefully over 14 islands connected by no fewer than 40 bridges. Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlof described Stockholm, most aptly, as "the city that floats on water." To complete the picture, one should mention the green parks and flower-filled squares, church steeples silhouetted against a mauve midsummer narrow lanes and wide quayside boulevards for strollers, billowing sailboats and motorboats dotting the channels and the archipelago, which starts at the city's doorstep. Stockholm had to wait almost 400 years before becoming Sweden's capital in 1634. Growth was painfully slow until the middle of the 19th century. Today the city is not only the seat of the national parliament and of the royal palace, but also the country's financial and business centre. And though there's plenty of elbow room in Sweden, the fourth largest country in Europe, more than one-sixth of the population crowds into the Stockholm area. I