Industrilandskapet Norrköping

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These pictures are taken on one of the last nice warm autumn evenings in Norrköping’s Industrilandskapet. “industrilandskapet” means as much as “industrial landscape”.

The old buildings contained once to the old textile manufactures and the paper mill. Especially the textile and cotton manufactures gave Norrköping the nickname of “Swedish Manchester”. The area grew since about 1850 and was alive as an industrial environment until the 20th century, when the competition became too strong and the last manufactures had to be closed down. Wikipedia gives a short history of Norrköping, in case you want to dig a little deeper.

Nowadays, Industrilandskapet is the home to concert halls, businesses, museums, pubs and the new visualisation center, which includes a brand new cinema.

What a history! And such a unique experience to walk around there, every time again.

Cacti Art

In Norrköping every year a mosaic of cacti gets created, and every year it commemorates an anniversary or another special happening.

This year it is the city hall’s 100th anniversary! So this is the outcome of the 2010 cacti art.

The assembly usually gets built during May, and it does take a couple of weeks until it is ready. Early October the plants will be moved again to their winter quarter. The cacti bed is situated on the lower part of Drottninggatan, to the right hand side. If you come by train, just walk up the main road leading to the town centre for less than 5 minutes, and there you are.

Since I am a fan of cacti in general, these pieces of art impress me over and over again, year for year.

Could this even be some inspiration for Kew Gardens? 😉

Concert time!

It was concert time last Thursday, the 14th of January.

Where? Louis de Geer Concert Hall in Norrköping
What? Pettersson’s 1st Symphony
When? 19.00

What was special?

Allan Pettersson was a Swedish composer who also lived in Paris during his career. He started a lot of pieces, but sometimes did not finish them. So it was with his 1st symphony. However, the conductor of this night’s performance, Christian Lindberg made a playable (and listenable!) version of it.

So on Thursday it was première for Pettersson’s 1st Symphony! Conducted by it Christian Lindberg.

I did not expect Pettersson to be my cup of tea quite frankly, but was willing to endure it, no matter what, because it was  followed by Haydn’s Trumpet Concert in E-Dur and Dvorak’s 9th Symphony in e-moll op 95. Both is to my mind great stuff if performed nicely.

Back to Pettersson. The music itself was as expected not really my thing, but oh my – did I ever watch such an energetic and enthusiastic conductor before? No. Especially none that appeared in a colourful shirt instead of smoking and some cowboy-boots like shoes on stage. Classical concert, remember.

He, though, looked more like someone jumping in from a jazz session. Christian Lindberg is by the way known as one of the most skilled trombone players of our time. Having him moving energetically around on the stage while conducting, his figure also reminded of a marathon runner in smart clothes. So I’d even like to call him the first conductor with some kind of sex appeal – look at his website (linked above) or check YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.

Though, if you get a chance to see him live, grab some tickets. It is worth it.

He also conducted Haydn and Dvorak, in the same manner but changed to  another shirt (now red instead of green) – and he was joined by the trumpet soloist Tine Thing Helseth, a Norwegian lady aged 23 who really showed off her superb skills when performing the Haydn trumpet concert.

I was really glad to have been to that for all these aspects very special concert. The loved one dragged me along, and I am still grateful for a fantastic night out. The concert hall was half empty, but I think people really missed out. If there would be any concert that gets young people interested in classical music, than it would have been this one. Simply because it was far from boring and proved all stereotypes of classical music that one gets exposed to during music lessons at school wrong.

The beauty of winter time

It still is a lovely winter landscape out there. Almost fairytale like at times as you can see.

However, this beauty is right now responsible for all regional trains in Östergötland being cancelled tonight – only the fast trains to Stockholm were still running. The reason? The fog freezes on the electrical leads the trains connect to – and it is only the fast trains that can actually take that challenge.

So we will see if I get to work by train or bus tomorrow 😉 Yesterday my train got evacuated because of that very problem, the train could not connect anymore to the electrical leads – a little adventure, but all went smooth. Footage is missing, though. The train staff made us laugh with announcements like “We do have an on-time-travel-guarantee, so please contact us tomorrow. You have been on train 8770, but they should know, it was the one who broke down in the sticks.” Together with the expression of the voice that one was comedy pure. 😉

Another thing I noticed. You go with the same people on the same train at the same times every day. And you never exchange a word. It takes these events to get people talking to each other. Even though they might look past you next day again when they sit opposite you or just give you a shy smile of recognition. Elevator behaviour I call that.

So, any more adventures ahead? And if so, peeps, keep talking to each other!

P.S.: Comment on the last pic. It says “After a walk in the cold, hot soup and hot chocolate will make you glad.” Well, they’ve got a point, don’t they?

The Norrköping Wall

‘You are leaving the ugly sector and are now entering the beautiful sector’ and vice verse one could read on the sides of the ‘wall’ constructed of milk boxes. It was located halfway down Drottninggatan. While taking these pics I was wondering where the builders might have placed the hidden camera. Hints, anyone?

Norrköping Impressions

The good thing with holidays and having visitors is that one finally takes some pictures of ones surroundings.

A few of these I would like to share with you.

strommen

Motala Strömmen close to the old industrial area – Industrilandskapet.

kakti

The famous cacti – every year a “picture” is created with cacti. The themes are usually related to an anniversary. This year it is 400 years of Holmen Paper AB who have their seat in Norrköping.

arbetetsmuseum

Arbetetsmuseum – here with an exhibition about mopeds.

himmelstalund

Himmelstalunds rock carvings from the bronze age (1800-500 b.Chr.)

industrielandskapet

“To all the lonely ones” – one of my favourites this summer. Graffiti in Industrilandskapet of Norrköping.

Eine Tramfahrt in Norrköping

Gestern abend ging es heim – erst mit der Tschut-Tschut (Pendeltåg) nach Norrköping und hoffen, dass man direkt eine Tram erwischt. Sehr wichtig, denn es saute wie nix. Wenn ich daran denke, dass wir letzte Woche 20 Grad mehr und Sonne hatten…. aber das ist ein anderes Thema. Jedenfalls stand meine Bahn da – Kurzsprint eingelegt um dann festzustellen, dass die Türen verschlossen und der Fahrer weiter hinten an einem der Stempelautomaten beschäftigt war. Stempelautomat ist nicht ganz richtig. Hier lädt man eine Plastikkarte auf und schiebt sie dann bei jeder neuen Fahrt in den Automaten – und genau so eine Karte hatte es sich nun Boden so eines Ablesekastens gemütlich gemacht. Nach weiteren vergeblichen Versuchen entschloss sich der Fahrer wohl mich und weitere Passagiere, die mittlerweile vom Zug herüberkamen mitzunehmen, wegen der Karte war er jedoch weiterhin am Sprechfunk mit der Zentrale, so dass die recht angenehme Musik aus dem Führerhaus davon übertönt wurde. Zwei Stationen später entschloss sich dass Kärtchen dann doch von alleine aus dem Kasten zu kommen, Problem gelöst. Puh. Der Fahrer war übrigens nicht älter als Mitte zwanzig, er sah so aus und legte den Enthusiasmus an den Tag, den man noch hat, wenn man einen Job noch nicht zu lange ausübt. Nächste Herausforderung (immer noch Sauwetter versteht sich) – Fussgänger, die über die Strasse töffeln ohne zu gucken – Bremsen der Tram als Resultat, die Falten im Gesicht des Fahrers vertieften sich temporär wieder etwas. Ein paar Stationen weiter hatte die Fahrt es wieder in sich, denn eine Ambulanz, die aus meiner Sicht auch eher auf Martinshorn hätte drücken können, musste vorbeigelassen werden – diesmal richtig schöne Vollbremsung. Danach versuchte der arme Kerl ein Auto davon zu überzeugen, dass er es vorlässt, was jedoch erst im zweiten Anlauf gelang. Dies heil überstanden und im Abbiegeprozess vor meiner Station kam natürlich noch ein VW Golf in die Quere, der so wirklich gar keinen Plan zu haben schien – eine weitere Fast-Vollbremsung der Tram. Man kann es gar nicht so wiedergeben, aber alles in allem war die gesamte Fahrt schon fast reif für Komik pur – auch wenn der Fahrer diese Ansicht nicht so ganz teilte.

Mit einem Lächeln und “Tackar” verabschiedete ich mich von ihm an der Endstation – hoffend, dass seine nächste Runde weniger Abenteuer beinhalten würde.

Eines kann man lernen, schwedische Verkehrsteilnehmer (nicht die Tram!) verhalten sich bei starkem Regenwetter genauso unberechenbar wie deutsche. Während in England die Leute bei ähnlichem Wetter ruhiger und bedachtsamer sind, so dass man sich manchmal schon wünscht es möge schneller gehen, kann man in Schweden und Deutschland manchmal froh sein, wenn man überhaupt heil nach Hause kommt. Bin mal auf den Herbst gespannt.