Wenner-Gren Center
The Wenner-Gren Center is a complex of buildings in Stockholm , located at the northern end of Sveavägen . The Wenner-Gren Center is named after its donor Axel Wenner-Gren .
The idea for this building goes back to an initiative of the Swedish biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Hugo Theorell . He wanted to create an international center for visiting scientists in Stockholm and in 1955 he got Wenner-Gren to donate 8 million kroner (corresponding to approx. 11 million euros in 2005). The Swedish government supported the plan and kept a plot of land available free of charge.
The Wenner-Gren Center was built according to the plans of the architects Sune Lindström and Alf Bydén during the years 1959–1961 and inaugurated in January 1962. The facility consists of three buildings: the conference building “Tetragon” , the semicircular residential building “Helicon” and the 74 meter high office building “Pylon” . The 25 storey high “pylon” stands, like the pointer of a sundial, at the focal point of the low, semicircular “Helicon” .
The Wenner-Gren Center was the first skyscraper in Sweden to contain a steel structure and in its time it was the tallest structure in Europe with this construction. In order to reinforce the impression of a high skyscraper, the broad sides of the high-rise were designed to narrow towards the top and clad with facade glass, the facades of the short sides consist of roughly profiled, blue-painted sheet metal that is mounted vertically.
The location of the building was deliberately chosen, close to the transport link to Arlanda Airport , the then new gateway to the world. On Arlada, the new terminal hall for international flights was inaugurated at the same time as the Wenner-Gren Center. Even today, the high-rise pylon can be seen from afar over the city. Axel Wenner-Gren was never able to see his building finished; he died shortly before the inauguration in November 1961.
photos
"Tetragon"
"Helicon"
"Pylon"
Main entrance
swell
- Stockholms byggnader, Prisma, 1977
- Information board on site
Web links
Coordinates: 59 ° 21 ′ 4 " N , 18 ° 2 ′ 55" E