Concrete sightseeing

So Tech Noir is back at classic EBM venue Kolingsborg again, starting next Saturday. I'm curious to see what they've done with Kolingsborg, if anything; apparently there's a new contract owner, and there were plans to give the interior a complete overhaul, modelled after Berghain in Berlin - i e, lots of steel and raw concrete, which sounds very promising.



Kolingsborg is a venue situated at Slussen in Stockholm - this photo was taken in 1939, so Kolingsborg didn't exist yet, but it's half hidden under the roadway at the bottom of the clover viewed from this side anyway. Slussen means the sluice, literally translated, connecting the lake Mälaren with the Baltic sea between two of the main islands Stockholm is built on, Old Town and Södermalm. This view shows the Södermalm side. Slussen is a modernist architectural gem, currently threatened by extinction, as the 75-year-old concrete is disintegrating, but there are still no decisions made about what exactly will happen. I'm still holding out for a restoration, rather than everything being torn down and a huge shopping mall or something plopped on top of the sluice.

Anyway, Slussen was drawn by architects Tage William-Olsson and Holger Blom, and opened for traffic in 1935 (apparently, Le Corbusier was impressed). It's built in several storeys, with Saltsjöbanan, a commuter railway seen in the top left corner, at the bottom, the subway station one storey above (the tracks running down the center of the lower half is the old tram line, where the subway runs now), a clover-shaped road carousel on top with pedestrian tunnels, paths and stairs running through it and water on both sides. It was dimensioned for far less traffic than today, but still works very well for both cars, all the different kinds of public transportation and people on foot. It's beautiful, too, especially when viewed from Katarinahissen far above, when you can clearly see the four leaf clover shape.

We are in for Götterdämmerung next Saturday too, the last day in the Ring des Nibelungen cycle. My plan is to go to Tech Noir afterwards, which means that I'll have to figure out something to wear which works both for the opera and for dancing - tricky. I have an idea or two, though, and I will try to take photos of the sketch and a piece of fabric I have lying around tomorrow.

Look, colour!

Black and bright green shot silk taffeta, and the plan is a fitted shirt that is shaped a little like a vest at the bottom, so it can be worn untucked without looking bad. Black buttons, but I'm not sure which ones yet - I happened to buy 15 vintage metal buttons today with chipping black paint, because they're exactly the same as one of my favourite odd buttons but much smaller. The single one is over 3 cm across, these are only 1 - 1,5 cm. I don't think they are right for this project, though, the fabric calls for something slightly fancier, but definitely black buttons of some description. Sew-through ones, attached with a silk thread that picks up the green, probably.



Better photo of the fabric. I really like the depth and luster of the colour in shot fabrics, silk and otherwise, and this one is a nice twist on olive drab. Will probably be predictable and wear it with a black pencil skirt, seamed stockings and a garrison cap, if I have time I might make a new skirt and cap with piping out of this fabric. My old favourite pencil skirt never quite recovered from that incident during the Nitzer Ebb gig the fall before last, so it looks a bit shabby. The luxury of the silk should make it festive enough, and I can skip the cap for the first part of the evening.

My other batch of Ebay buttons arrived today, and I'll be damned if they are not uranium glass - I don't know why I didn't jump to that conclusion in the first place, but it's a very nice surprise. They are clearly the right shade, and the colour is in the glass, not achieved by a coloured metal film under it. I should try to do a blacklight test, somehow.