
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.
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Time again for another visit to some various Swedish shopping centers, as they looked back in the golden days of consuming. This time featuring Stockholm and Gothenburg. Do not forget to listen to "Retro Shopping Volume 1" while looking at the photos for the perfect mood setter.
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Väla Centrum is a shopping mall located in southern Sweden just outside of Helsingborg. Been planing on writing about it for a long time now but have not been able to find anything useful - until now. This is the mall I grew up with. Many many Friday evenings and Saturdays were spent here when I traveled there going shopping with my family as a kid back in the 1980s and early 1990s.
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This is a cut from a educational promotion film that explains some aspects on why Täby Centrum was built. The film is in Swedish and narrated by the architect of the center who explains some particulars about it. If you look closely you will see the Domus sign in the background on the second floor of the mall. Domus was one of the typical anchor type stores at Swedish malls during the 60s and 70s. Most of the Domus stores are gone today or have been renamed Coop, which is the new brand for the KF owned stores. Täby Centrum is now the largest indoor mall in Sweden and one of the largest in Europe. It opened september 26, 1968 and had major expansions made in 1991. There are now plans to make it even bigger.
Listen to the dreamy shopping music that can be heard in the background inside the shopping center. If you like this kind of music, be sure to download my custom made compilation "Retro Shopping Volume 1 - Music to buy toasters by".

Time for another peek at the past shopping experiences. This time we are leaving Sweden to have a look at some photos from an American shopping center. Since most of the Swedish malls and shopping centers that was built in the 50s, 60s and 70s all took their inspiration from the American malls, I thought it would be a good idea to compare the design and architecture of them.
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Time again to visit the yesteryear's shopping experience. Here are some fresh assorted postcards from two different shopping centers in Sweden, one from Stockholm and the other one from Gothenburg. I have only visited the latter a couple of times, and it is still there - but it looks slightly different today (as many other things from the past). Enjoy Keith!
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Shopping in Luleå in the north parts of Sweden was the first indoor shopping mall in Europe. Built in 1955, designed by the famous architect Ralph Erskine, who wanted to create a mall for people to enjoy and socialize - even with the cold winter climate of northern Sweden. Apparently he got the idea when visiting a outdoor shopping mall in Canada during the winter.
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Time for another visit to yesteryears shopping malls in Sweden, this time focusing on a gem located in the suburbs of Gothenburg in the southwest parts of Sweden. The Frölunda Torg mall was built in 1966 and was by its completion the biggest mall in Europe. It took seven years and 80 million Swedish Krona (approx. $100 000 000) to complete it.
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