Åhléns City
Åhléns City is a department store in the Norrmalm district in central Stockholm, Sweden. The building is located at Klarabergsgatan 50 and takes up the entirety of the Gripen block. Åhléns City is the largest singular store of the Åhléns chain and amounts to almost 20% of the chain's total revenue. The building was designed by the architectural bureau Backström & Reinius Arkitekter AB, was opened on 9 September 1964 and was awarded the Kasper Salin Prize in 1966. The building is noted by the Stockholm City Museum for "having an obviously high cultural historical value". Background In the 1950s the board of Åhlén & Holm saw that the redevelopment of Norrmalm would move the centre of the city from Hötorget to Sergels torg. Åhlén & Holm owned a building on Hötorget at the time, called Tempohuset, where the Kungshallen building is currently located. The Stockholm Municipality exchanged the building at Hötorget with a building where Åhléns City is currently located. Both parties benefited from the deal, the municipality got a valuable building and Åhlén & Holm got a building precisely next to the Stockholm Metro hub T-Centralen near the Stockholm Central Station. The old building in the Gripen block