STOCKHOLM’S INCREDIBLE SUBWAY ART

More than 90% of Stockholm’s Metro is plastered in art and inventive installations. The perfect way to spend a rainy day in the city, or even a sunny one if you enjoy photography. 150 artists collaborated to transform these underground tunnels of utility into a sprawling wonderland, nicknamed the ‘World’s Longest Art Gallery’.

Each station has its own theme. The variations include anything from a 1980s James Bond villain’s lair to platforms decorated entirely by children. There is something for everyone, but for those of you who don’t relish being underground for too long, I’ve made you a map of the 15 best stations to jump off at. Grab a 2 hour metro pass and take yourself on a self-guided tour of Stockholm’s metro and join the rising numbers of ‘subway-grammers’.

TIP…None of the stations have just one area dedicated to art, so make sure to explore all the stairwells and tunnels to get the most from this guide.

1 | Tensta

Guess: An eclectic mix of distracting cave paintings

Answer: Painted by a brother and sister over the course of a year. They decorated the Tensta Station with paintings and script intended to welcome and comfort immigrants from any culture or background.

2 | Sundbybergs Centrum

Guess: The walls are listening

Answer: This station has a real mix of installations. One being the concrete ear and mouth. At another end of the station is a collection of 6 buildings, built by Lars Kleen. Each with a different architectural style. Each one represents a different stage in the city’s history and design.

Sundbyberg Centrum by Arild Vågen is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

3 | Solna Strand

Guess: I think they are sky cubes? No, sky dice! Well, who knows what they are, but you can be certain you will walk into these massive blue cubes cemented to the floor and ceiling at some point.

Answer: The Japanese artist Takashi Naraha who designed this station’s transformation intended to depict the balance between light and darkness through ‘heavenly cubes’ and the dark cavern they rest in.

Stockholm Metro Series by .craig is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

4 | Hallonbergen

Guess: Complete with handprints and sketches of people missing vital body parts. This station must be the creation of Stockholm’s children?

Answer: Almost. Not children, but artists capturing child-like wonder through sketches. If that wasn’t enough, the name of the station translates as ‘Raspberry Mountain’!

Spåravskiljare by Daniel Mott is liscenced under CC BY-SA 2.0

Hallonbergen by AleWi is liscenced under CC BY-SA 4.0

5 | Nackrosen

Guess: This is the calmest of all the stations. If you visit at night, when fewer people are around and if you possess an overactive imagination, you may just be able to convince yourself you are a Pre-Raphaelite beauty floating under a pond of lily pads and blossoms.

Answer: I was actually right with this one! Nackrosen, means water lily.

A pond above you by AlexDROP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

6 | Solna Centrum

Guess: I wasn’t sure what this artist had in mind when designing this station, other than it should feel foreboding.

Answer: Now I’ve looked more closely, I can see the theme is the destruction of nature. What originally was meant to be a setting sun above a forest, overtime was transformed into a political message, concerning over-logging.

Solna Centrum by Tony Webster is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

7 | T-Centralen

Guess: All I can think of when I look at these station walls are Greek islands.

Answer: Grecian blue vines climbing up the Santorini white washed walls was Olaf Ultvedt’s way of creating a sense of calm at Stockholm’s busiest metro hub. The upper platforms are where you can find the silhouettes. Olaf shone a spotlight on all the workers crafting the station to capture their silhouette which he transferred on to the walls. He was going to add their names but thought better of making the tunnel look like a mausoleum.

8 | Radhuset

Guess: Another molten volcano-esque cave underneath Stockholm? A possible secret escape tunnel as the station is directly under the city government.

Answer: Nothing to say otherwise! Keep your eyes peeled at this station for the subtler additions. Noteworthy ones include the two left boots on the ceiling and the stone archway over the south-bound tunnel entrance. The boots, which look like two purple Doc Martins cemented to the ceiling have a little plaque between them which reads ‘Lyckans galoscher från Hantverkargatan’. This translates as ‘Joyous galoshes from Hantverkargatan’. Hantverkargatan is the old craftsmen’s street directly above the station where men would have bought boots like these.

9 | Kungstradgarden

Guess: All I can think of in this hexagonal maze is that this is what the lovechild of Willy Wonka and the designer Kaffe Fassett would look like.

Answer: Meant to evoke the idea of an underground garden. The colours are a reference to the French formal gardens like the one above the station, which flourished there for nearly 400 years. I can’t see it personally.

10 | Rissne Centrum

Guess: Wishes or quotes in different colours. Not sure if that skull is part of it or not.

Answer: A timeline of recorded history all the way from 3000BC to the 1980s! No small effort there! Apparently each colour represents a different category of world history (Red = Life Events, Green = Politics, Pink = Culture, Blue = Technology, Yellow = Religion). The husband and wife artists have also painted an enormous world map on the ceiling of the tunnel in these colours. Possibly the country’s colour represents their most frequent category.

Rissne station by Alpros is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

11 | Tekniska

Guess: Alien birthing pods mislaid by the Prometheus prop director?

Answer: This station is home to the five elements encased within five geometric terrariums hanging from the ceiling. This station is dedicated to the wonders of science, including Newton’s 3 Laws, Da Vinci’s designs and the mechanical alphabet. You guessed it, this station is beneath Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology.

TIP…Keep an eye out for an enormous apple and the planetary system popping out.

The blue cave by AlexDROP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

12 | Stadion

Guess: Childhood dreams of walking under massive rainbows comes true in this Tellietubbie-esque kingdom.

Answer: The rainbows are a kick-back to the colours of the olympics, held in Stockholm in 1912. Now, they are the meeting place for Stockholm’s annual gay pride parade.

13 | Alby

Guess: Ermm… cave art by underwater psychedelic aliens?

Answer: Alby is a funky take on prehistoric cave paintings found in Stockholm. So I was half right.

Alby Metro by AleWi is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

14 | Thorildsplan

Guess: Step inside the mind of Mario and Luigi, if your eyes can adapt to this pixelated subterranean world.

Answer: Stockholm City Council’s only condition for this station’s rebirth was that tiles must be used instead of paint, and so began this 8-bit fantasy.

Thorildsplan Metro Station by Shadowgate is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

15 | Odenplan

Guess: This one is a must for fans of Twin Peaks and Blade Runner will love this stop. A ceiling covered in fluorescent tubing as if spewed from a seismometer.

Answer: Not spewed from a seismometer but a HRM, the lights represent the heartbeats of the artist’s son at his birth. The name of the heart-warming piece is ‘Life Line’.