Stockholm's ochre old town
Gamla Stan
The medieval island at the centre of Stockholm, with tall narrow houses in yellow ochre, orange and deep red.
Why Gamla Stan is ochre yellow
Gamla Stan, the old town, covers a small island where Stockholm was founded in the 13th century. Its lanes are narrow and its houses tall, mostly from the 17th and 18th centuries. Their plastered fronts are painted in a limited, warm range: yellow ochre, burnt orange, rust and dark red, with the occasional green. These were the earth pigments available to Swedish builders. The best-known view is Stortorget, the main square, where a row of gabled merchants' houses stands in red, orange and yellow. Church spires and roofs of green copper rise above. In the low light of the northern winter the warm walls seem to hold what sun there is.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Gamla Stan
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Gamla Stan" on Wikipedia. If you know Gamla Stan and we have it wrong, tell us.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Mathura In: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Pondicherry In: Karthik Easvur, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Kolkata In: Ketanmehta4u, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Mumbai In: iMahesh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Fontainhas In: iMahesh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Falun Se: Calle Eklund/ V-wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, source