Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

sweden

Video

Short funky Swedish documentary about the development of the state-of-the-art Royal Swedish Air force jet fighter “Draken“. Built and developed by Swedish car maker Saab in the early 1950s, this video takes us on a brief journey on how the plane was developed and tested before its maiden flight in 1955. Also pay attention to the thick and rather silly Swedish accents that makes this...

Sweden’s Oldest Amusement Park

Gröna Lund in Stockholm is one of a handful amusement parks in Sweden. It might not be the biggest one, but it is certainly the oldest. Built in 1883, on the seashore overlooking the masses of water that divides Stockholm into something that sometimes is referred to as the Swedish version of Venice. Over exaggerated perhaps, but there is some truth in the claim. I...

A Classic 1950s Café In Stockholm

I lived in Stockholm for two years but I totally missed out on this place. Café Valand was opened in 1954 by Magdalena and her husband Stellan Åström who also designed it. The café is located in the cute and lively area Vasastaden in Stockholm where it has sat frozen in time with its stylish wooden walls, signs, machines and tables for over five decades....

Shopping Spree – Part 9
Written by Christopher in Stores

Shopping Spree – Part 9

Don’t know what to spend that extra cash on? Don’t worry, there is still time. Our stores are open at convenient times and located just around the corner here in Yester Sweden. Today we are traveling back in time to visit Stockholm and Hudiksvall (north of Stockholm) where you can slowly waltz through the many isles of exotic groceries, the latest fashion, brand new color...

Vintage Volvos
Written by Christopher in Advertising

Vintage Volvos

Moving back to Sweden again for a while and more specifically to the Swedish automotive industry. For those who aren’t in the know, Sweden has two major brands; Volvo and Saab. Today we are going back to the mid 1950s to look at how the advertisements for model 121 also known as the Amazon were portrayed in the country that brought you all ABBA, IKEA...

More Photos from Väla Centrum – A Kitschy Swedish Shopping Mall

I recently 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 of the time – meaning that it didn’t look typically Scandinavian or traditional, which I really love. It even had a bird cage with live canaries up until the circa the mid 1980s....

Swedish Street Scenes in the 60s – Suburbia Deluxe

Here are a bunch of old postcards depicting normal everyday life street scenes in Sweden in the 1960s. Progress has taken its toll on all of these places and I very much doubt they look like this today. Although, I do love the colors and how everything looked so casually organized and clean back then....

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