Hotel Birger Jarl

Hotel description

You couldn’t get much more modern or more Swedish than this. Named after the city’s founder, the Birger Jarl is the ultimate in Stockholm chic, with its kiss-me red lobby and birch wood paneling that makes even the most jaded of interior decorators catch their breath. Every piece of furniture is custom designed by someone native, as are the staff uniforms. Downstairs, the lobby acts as a rotating gallery for local artists. It is, quite literally, this stylish city’s symbol.

Twelve of the rooms are personal creations of architects, both famous and up-and-coming, including the star of Swedish modernism Thomas Sandell, so hip he just recently designed a house for Wallpaper. The rooms are, if you will, live-in works of art, so it is definitely worth your while to stay in one, and get a peek at the others. In one, soft light sculptures are beamed on the walls. In another, photographs of a beech forest slide open to reveal windows, and the Stockholm urban vista outside. The much-lauded “Birger Suite,” with its black lacquer headboards, somber geometry, and rice paper lamps, reminds us of a samurai’s reception hall. On the other hand, our favorite Thomas Sandell room, with its all-white walls covered in brightly colored sprinkles, is oddly reminiscent of a nursery.

But the concept doesn’t stop here. Book a “design package” and you’ll get a very handy pass to the major museums, together with a discount for the best showrooms. In fact, Birger Jarl is so cool, it would almost be chilly; but it isn’t, thanks to the staff. Swedish hospitality is unpretentious, frank, and friendly. Should you choose to stroll through in a tee-shirt and jeans, they’ll help you very nicely with your backpack. Besides, there’s also attention to those less aesthetic conveniences that are necessary in making any hotel stay a treat: like ISDN connections, generous bathroom accessories, and a gym that overlooks the rooftops of Noormalm.

You are walking distance from virtually everything worth seeing in Stockholm. Breakfast is on the house, and is one of the most fantastic smorgasbords in all of Sweden-pickled herring, cold meats, scrambled eggs, cheese. So feel free to act playful in Sandell’s polka-dotted creation. For at the Birger Jarl, high design and low-key relaxation are not mutually exclusive notions.