More Photos from Väla Centrum

Stores: More Photos from Väla Centrum

I found some more photos of my favorite shopping mall in southern Sweden – Väla Centrum. It was built in 1974 outside of Helsingborg and took its inspiration from American shopping malls at the time – meaning that it didn’t look very Scandinavian or traditional, which I really love. It even had a birdcage with live canaries up until the mid 1980s. For more information and photos of the shopping center, see my earlier post about it.


About the author: Chris

Founded Ultra Swank in 2005. Has a crush on Pan Am, Disneyland and the Century 21 Exposition. Lives life as an expat in Barcelona, Spain.

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By Chris

November 26th, 2008

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Comments for this post

  • P-E Fronning

    Both inside and out it looks pretty much like the mall in Dawn of the Dead. At least if we’d add one floor. And I guess those shoppers could just as well be zombies :)

  • Chris

    Yes they both have that 1970s zombie vibe going on! I only wish that Väla still looked like this instead of the unaesthetic and impersonal place it is now.

  • Anne and Charles

    stunning simply stunning love it

    Lee of Bakersfield

  • mblawi

    I bought an album on LSD there around 1976 or so!

    That is… I wasn’t high; it was a copy of Capitol’s 60s documentary/exploitation album on LSD that for some reason had ended up in a bargain bin outside of a store at the Väla shopping mall in Sweden. As a curious teenager, how could I resist it?

  • Diego

    In the US during this period the malls in California started taking on a more ‘natural’ feel with plants, goldfish ponds, fountains and occasionally, bird cages. Instead of the block design in building, angles and curved walls started to appear. Almost of the malls built in that manner have been remodeled and rearranged to allow more auto traffic and less walking for overweight Americans.

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