I still remember the moment I climbed the stairs of Stockholm City Hall (Stadshuset) and stepped through the door of the Golden Hall (Gyllene Salen): the walls of the 44-meter-long hall were covered from top to bottom with shimmering gold, light fractured differently at every step. As someone who has traveled through more than 45 countries, I can say that such a "light play" is a rarely encountered architectural experience. But what makes the Golden Hall special is not merely its brilliance; behind the mosaics on the walls lies nine years of negotiations, a Berlin workshop, and the signature of an artist in his twenties. In this article, I will examine the hall both technically and visually in detail.
What Is the Golden Hall, and What Is Its Connection to the Nobel Banquet?
Stadshuset was built between 1911-1923 following the design of architect Ragnar Östberg and is considered one of the most magnificent examples of the national romantic movement. One of two large ceremonial halls inside the building is the "Blue Hall" (Blå Hallen), and the other is the Golden Hall upstairs. Contrary to popular assumption, the official Nobel Prize award banquet is not held in the Golden Hall, but in the Blue Hall downstairs. The Golden Hall's role is post-banquet: following the award ceremony, guests climb upstairs to this hall after dinner to dance. In other words, the hall hosts what we might call the "closing scene" of the Nobel evening—a distinction I myself had missed before understanding it, having assumed the banquet took place here, though the reality is more layered.
Einar Forseth's Brush, Puhl & Wagner's Hands
The artist whose designs determined the hall's visual identity was Swedish artist Einar Forseth, who was only 28 years old when his designs were being prepared. The city council approved the project in 1908, the hall was given the name "Gyllene Salen" in 1909, but the actual construction of the mosaics could not begin until 1921. The delay was not in vain: the firm selected to execute Forseth's designs, Berlin-based Puhl & Wagner (under Gottfried Heinersdorff's direction), required years of discussion regarding technical details, material supply, and costs. The work was completed between 1921 and 1923—meaning the hall's walls had already begun to be covered in gold while the building was still under construction.
The figures are also impressive: according to records, approximately 18.6 million colored glass mosaic pieces and 11 kilograms of gold leaf were used in the hall. Rather than mounting this many pieces individually in place, the workshop used a technique called the "indirect method": mosaic pieces were first glued to cardboard with their front faces facing down, these reversed cardboards were transported from Berlin to Stockholm, then they were pressed onto wet plaster and the paper was peeled off from above. This way both more precise compositional control was achieved and on-site labor costs were reduced. Once again, I saw here that the logistics of a work of art can be as calculated as the art itself.
Byzantine Traces and the Technical Heritage Reaching Istanbul
The hall's mosaics are generally described by art historians as being "in Byzantine style"; that is, the figures on the walls, placed against a gold background in flat and stylized compositions, are direct heirs to Eastern Roman-Byzantine church mosaics (for example, the gold-background figures in the Hagia Sophia's apsis and nave). At this point, I want to clarify the "Turkish culture" emphasis in the title: The geography where the Byzantine mosaic tradition originated and where its most magnificent examples still stand today is Istanbul—that is, contemporary Turkey. The golden-mosaic language that Forseth reinterpreted in Stockholm has its roots, in terms of origin, in Constantinople's artistic heritage. This is a real and verifiable connection for those seeking to trace the technical and aesthetic origins, not for those looking for direct "Turkish figures" in the wall.
Beyond this, it is known that in the north wall's main composition, to the left are "exotic motifs from the East," and on the right are motifs from modern Western cities like New York and Paris; this arrangement was designed to symbolize Stockholm as a city "exalted by both East and West." However, to be honest, sources do not provide clear identification that these "Eastern" figures specifically belong to the Ottoman, Turkish, or another people—they are subject to a generalized "Orientalist" imagination of the period rather than specific identity attribution. For this reason, presenting the hall as "full of Turkish figures" would be misleading; the real verifiable connection is that the mosaic technique used derives from Byzantine-Istanbul origins.
Mälardrottningen: The Hall's Queen
The huge figure sitting in the center of the north wall is called the "Mälardrottningen," that is, the Queen of Lake Mälar, and holds a miniature Stockholm skyline in her lap. This image is the visualized form of a poetic epithet referring to the city's unique geographical position between Lake Mälar and the Baltic Sea. On the south wall there is a more concrete historical narrative: the Stockholm harbor, Katarina Elevator, Riddarholm Church, the City Hall itself, the old Tre Kronor castle, and Saint Erik on his horse are all depicted. In other words, the hall actually places two separate narrative layers side by side—on one side the city's legendary/poetic identity, on the other its concrete historical symbols.
A "Eastern" Window Within National Romantic Architecture
The entire Stadshuset is one of the most recognized representatives of the movement called "national romanticism" in Swedish architectural history; when designing this building, Ragnar Östberg created a multifaceted reference world extending from medieval Scandinavian castle architecture, to Venetian palaces, to even Byzantine church traditions. The Golden Hall is perhaps the point where this eclectic approach is most concentrated: on one side Scandinavian mythic figures, on the other the Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean's gold-mosaic aesthetics meet on the same wall. In early 20th-century Sweden, such a "nod to the East" was not unique to Stockholm; similar examples of harmonizing Byzantine and "Oriental" motifs (especially in churches and state buildings) were frequently seen in the period's European architecture. Forseth's design can be read as Swedish's most spectacular reflection of this broad movement.
What affected me most while walking through the hall was how the mosaics, which appear from afar as a completely abstract golden texture, dissolve up close into hundreds of small figures, ships, crowns, and symbols. My guide explained how the light's changing angle throughout the day gives the same wall two different "moods" at morning and afternoon; this enhanced the impression that the hall was not a static artwork, but a living surface constantly reinventing itself throughout the day. The same logic applies to Byzantine church mosaics: the trembling of candles and daylight makes the gold ground appear to move—exactly the light play that Forseth recreated in Stockholm.
Things to Pay Attention to When Visiting the Hall
The Golden Hall can only be entered with guided tours; according to Stadshuset's own program, English and Swedish tours are held at specific times of the day, so it is necessary to check current tour times before visiting. Since the ceiling's light source is largely natural window light, the brilliance of the mosaics changes noticeably from hour to hour depending on daylight's angle; when I opted for an afternoon tour, I noticed the golden surfaces shining much more vividly. When taking photographs, it is important not to use flash, both to prevent reflections and to protect the artwork.
A separate tour up the building's tower is also available, and combining these two can make sense for those wanting to grasp both Stockholm's history and its skyline in a single visit. On my own visit, I took the Golden Hall tour first, then the tower climb; this allowed me both to examine mosaic details up close and to see the city's general layout from above. Ultimately, the Golden Hall is not merely a "photo-worthy" space; it bears behind it nine years of negotiation, cardboard transported from Berlin to Stockholm, and the traces of a Byzantium-to-Stockholm golden-mosaic language whose origin in history is traceable, the experience of which is immeasurably enriched by knowing this story. Visiting the hall while understanding this history is where the true enrichment lies.