My Field Trip to the City Hall

So today the whole of the Swedish Program got up really early to go see Stockholm's City Hall- the place where the Nobel Prizes are awarded. It's coming up soon, and already people are starting to get excited and talk about it.

This first video is of the courtyard. The City Hall is actually only just over 80 years old, even though it looks older. They made it to look and fit in with the other historical buildings in the city. And while they succeeded in some areas, they did not in others (some of the rooms are quite modern looking, or quite... other country looking. You'll see what I mean, later)



*EDIT: MY ORIGONAL POST HAD THE "COURTYARD" AS MY DINNER FROM LAST NIGHT. IT HAS BEEN CHANGED. MY APOLOGIES. I hope you have been amused.

This is of the view of Gamla Stan and the sorrounding area that can be seen from the City Hall. The Bridge goes over the island that was once the prison, and is now a Youth Hostel.



This the the Blue Room- which was supposed to be blue, but the architect decided at the last moment that he liked the natural brick better. Originally this room was supposed to represent the sea- with the green-blue tiles being the sea bottom, the walls being the sea, and the open ceiling being the sky. It was also supposed to be like a courtyard, but because of heating problems, the roof got changed from glass to a solid ceiling.



This is the view of the organ. Ideally Organs should be place 3/4 to 2/3 of the way up on a wall to get the right resonance. Here however they have been placed at the top- which means when there are a lot of people in the room and it gets warm, the organ sounds funny. Another interesting fact- when changes had to be made a while back, the keyboard had to be removed, and was changed to a remote system, where the organist is on the floor. This results in a HALF SECOND delay between what the organist plays and what comes out. (For those who don't sing- that's a noticeable difference- it's got to be confusing as heck.)