Sweden Guide
Gothenburg
Röhsska Design Museum
Address: 37–39 Vasagatan
Opening time: Tues noon–8pm, Wed– Fri noon–5pm, Sat & Sun 11am–5pm
Price: 40kr
Website: www.designmuseum.se
The excellent Röhsska Design Museum is Sweden's only museum of applied arts. Built in 1916, this is an aesthete's Aladdin's cave, each floor concentrating on different areas of decorative and functional art, from early dynasty Chinese ceramics to European arts and crafts of the sixteenth century. The first floor holds an especially interesting section devoted to twentieth-century design (from garden gnomes to the Absolut vodka bottle) – enough to send anyone on a nostalgia trip. The exhibition ends with a brilliant film about consumerism and the need for anarchy in order to achieve true happiness.