According to
tradition,
Stockholm was founded by
Birger Jarl in
1250. It is
certainly mentioned in a
preserved letter from
1252, but the size of the
settlement at that time is quite unknown.
Birka and
Sigtuna had been the centers of power in Sweden before this time, but the strategic position of the "stock holme"("log
islet") at the
inlet of the
mälaren meant that it was ideal for use as a
lock.
In
1520, king
Kristian II(commonly known as "
Kristian the Tyrant" in
Sweden) marched into
Stockholm, hailed by the
burghers. He proceeded to
decapitate no less than 82 of the citys most
prominent men. This event, known as the
Blood Bath of Stockholm, still lives in
city history, with
several places and
stories tied to it.
During the
17th century,
Stocholm beyond the
Old Town gained the
shape it has today.
Central to the
design was a
geometrical grid of
streets and the
idea of "tullar" or
tolls that
controlled the
entry points into the
city.
Similar to the Tors of
Berlin, the places where they lay
still retain the names of
Hornstull,
Roslagstull,
Norrtull,
Skanstull,
Danvikstull etc. The
architect of this
development was
Klas Fleming, and he had such vast
resources because during this time the
Baltic Sea was surrounded by
Swedish territory on all sides(following the
Thirty Years War).
In the
20th century,
functionalism,
bauhaus and the
demolition of the
beautiful Klara district all put their
mark upon
Stockholm before the
1960s arrived, and with them a great
evil. Because of
terrible overpopulation and large
residential areas
inappropriate for the majority of people, a
grand program was initiated to build one
million apartments. The resulting
apartment complexes were uniformly
ugly,
bleak,
desolate things, not suitable for
living in. They were also
plagued by
asbestos problems and other
effects of using cutting-edge but as yet untested
materials.
Modern
Stockholm is a
bustling capital with roughly two million inhabitants, counting surrounding areas. Approximately
700 000 of these live in the
inner city,
400 000 in the
rich northern
suburbs and the rest in the
developing areas to the
south and
west(the
Baltic Sea prevents
expansion to the
east, except for
small cottages on islets in the
archipelago). The inner town of
Stockholm is divided (sometimes by
water, sometimes by
custom) into several parts: the
Old Town on the
original stockholmen, the
Kungsholmen to the
south,
Östermalm to the
north and
east and
Vasastan and
Birkastan to the
north and
west.
Stockholm also has several
universities, including the
Royal Institute of Technology or
KTH,
Södertörns Universitet and the
University of Stockholm.
It might be
interesting to know that
Kristian II is known as
Kristian the good in
Denmark. It appears that much like beauty,
tyranny is in the eye of the beholder.
The
research for this
writeup was greatly
facilitated by
Holmiensis,
www.holmiensis.net