The circular hall
Walls of books floor to ceiling, designed in 1928.
ArildV — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0
The most important Swedish architect of the twentieth century, with an influence far beyond Sweden. The Stockholm Public Library of 1928 is his best-known work and stands at the turn from Nordic classicism to modernism — a plain cylinder on a square base, without ornament and with a clear logic. His other great work is the **Woodland Cemetery, Skogskyrkogården**, south of Stockholm and on the World Heritage list: a cemetery he designed with Sigurd Lewerentz in which the landscape itself is the architecture. Both are free and can be seen in one day by metro.
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Observatorielunden is a small park on a rise in the Vasastan district, one of the few free viewpoints in central Stockholm — and among the least visited by foreigners. At its top stands the **old observatory** of 1753, built by the architect Carl Hårleman for the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the centre of Swedish astronomy for two centuries until the city's lights forced it to move. It is a small museum today with limited hours. At the foot of the hill is the **Stockholm Public Library** — and this is the architecturally important piece: **Gunnar Asplund** designed it in 1928, and its circular central hall with walls of books from floor to ceiling is among the most reproduced architectural images of the twentieth century. **Entry is free** and it is a working library. The park also has monuments, paths and a view over the city's roofs. **Free and always open**, with a metro station at its foot.
Walls of books floor to ceiling, designed in 1928.
Vasastan's roofs, free, in the middle of the city.
Observatorielunden, Vasastan, Stockholm