Prevue September/October 2011 - (Page 56)

The Nobel Prize award dinners are held annually inside the iconic City Hall, built in 1911 with eight million bricks designed like an Italian piazza. The main Blue Hall seats 1,300. The Golden Hall upstairs overlooking the water seats 700, surrounded by 23.5-carat gold mosaics created with over 18 million pieces of tiny tile. About 150 groups meet here a year, and you can choose from any of the past 81 years of Nobel Prize menus. For extra an open book, total transparency. We want people to copy what we have done, and that’s happening all the time, which is maybe the most rewarding part of this.” Another Tech Visit revolves around Entrepreneurship & Brand Management. “One factor that is very attractive to U.S. businesses is the entrepreneurship of the ICEHOTEL and the crazy part about the ICEHOTEL, where we’ve succeeded in building a house of snow and ice, which is natural from where we live, and that we’ve been able to turn it into a successful business,” says Björk. “We discuss how we got the idea, how we’ve grown together as a group of like-minded people, and how we went to the bank and said we have an idea—and we were thrown out. We’re no longer being thrown out of the bank.” impact, bring the group via boat. Next door, the brazenly modern Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre opened last winter, along with the attached 414-room Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel. The 11,000 sf of glass envelope includes solar collectors gathering about one MW of energy daily. That’s roughly the same as 90,000 low energy lightbulbs. The convention center is cooled by lake water stored below in giant ice tanks, and almost the entire facility is illuminated by natural daylight. The 2-tier, 2,800-seat Main Hall faces 40foot high glass overlooking the city; there’s a fun outdoor terrace seating 340, and you’re within five minutes walking distance to 2,800 rooms. “I like that WiFi is included in the conference center rate and it’s very customizable,” says Wendy Wright, a planner with Burlington-based Heming Group, who’s bringing a med group here. “Both are very convenient for our group because you never know when there’s going to be a last minute change.” Slow Food + Fast Boats There is not a capital city in Europe more connected with the sea than Stockholm. Water covers 1/3 of the city consisting of 14 islands in an archipelago where Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic. Other cities have massive ports but that relationship is commercial. This one is personal, intimate, individual. I had to laugh as we pulled on snowmobile-style suits again the first morning in Stockholm. Except these were all black, accessorized with black lifejackets, boots, beanies and goggles. Looking like a band of mercenaries on our way to invade Oslo, we screamed out of the harbor at 45 knots with RIB Sightseeing. “RIB” stands for Rigid Inflatable Boat, like the zodiacs used by Navy SEALS. They handle 24 pax with handles in front of each seat to keep you stationary. Thoroughly invigorated after the 20-minute transfer, we pulled up to Bockholmen Restaurant, housed inside a Martha Stewart-ish 2-story wooden estate house surrounded by tall trees and water on three sides. This may have been the most relaxed meal of the trip, in a private room on the top floor. The corn-fed chicken with summer truffle risotto from Gotland goes well with Sancerre. Really well. Lots You Can Do With an Old Building Our hotel in Stockholm was the furthest departure possible from Jukkasjärvi. Dripping in Old World elegance across the harbor from the Royal Palace in the historic district of Gamla Stan, the 345-room Grand Hotel Stockholm opened in 1874. The well-lit, retro mod Verandah restaurant/bar off the lobby is the power watering hole of the city, and it’s one of the few offering traditional Swedish smorgasbord. For fine-dining, Mathias Dahlgren was listed on Pelligrino’s top 50 list in 2009. It consists of two spaces: the two Michelin star ”Matsalen” (dining room) and the one star ”Matbaren” (food bar), a country bistro for Vogue designers ordering salmon/reindeer sushi. Private dining for 8/25 respectively. For venues, the Grand lives up to its name and then some. The Winter Garden space for 800 pax is designed like a Tuscan Village, which used to be the horse stables. The hero space is the 500-pax Hall of Mirrors, outfitted with gold leaf and Italian frescos with lovely prefunction space overlooking the harbor. The Nobel dinners were held here until 1930. As a fan of “adaptive re-use architecture”—a major theme in the field of sustainability—I really enjoyed the new 186-room Elite Hotel Marina Tower, Stockholm, with 15 meeting rooms Historic Meets High-Tech Across the street from each other in the heart of Stockholm, two truly staggering group venues couldn’t be more different. 56 | prevue magazine

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Prevue September/October 2011

Back Bay, Boston
Manchester
Meliá Hotels & Resorts
San Francisco/Denver/Cleveland
HSMAI + Soles4Souls
IRF/MGM Resorts, Las Vegas
Daytona Beach
Sustainability: The Next Big Thing
Central America
India
Sweden
Barcelo Resorts/Samana, DR
Portland

Prevue September/October 2011