Where do you live in D.C.? #11

Where do we live in D.C.?   

We live near the House of Sweden, the Swedish embassy in the United States.  It is located about 6 blocks away and is situated on the riverfront in Georgetown.

The House of Sweden is an ultra-modern building, with a lot of glass.  

The House of Sweden was designed by Swedish architects Gert Wingårdh and Tomas Hansen and completed in 2006. It is clad in blonde wood, glass and stone.  The "House of Sweden exemplifies the very best of signature Scandinavian simplicity, modernity, and unpretentious elegance, wedded to characteristic Swedish practicality and flexibility."

We recently visited the House of Sweden, which was hosting three exhibits in its lobby and lower floor.  One exhibit, The Creative Nation: Swedish Music and Innovation, featured Swedish innovation over the past 150 years.   

One item in the exhibit caught Susan's attention--the Hovding, an airbag for your head.  You might have seen this invention already.  A bicyclist wears a collar that deploys an airbag in case of a crash.  Below are photos of the collar and the deployed airbag.

To see the inflatable helmet in action, click here.  

Apparently, the airbag doubles as a shower cap.  Perhaps that was what caught Susan's attention.  Susan will be getting a Hovding on her next birthday.  Susan does not ride a bike but she takes lots of showers.    

In the lobby, Susan also discovered a comfy couch,  Check it out.  

Another display caught Greg's attention.  It turns out that the architect of the U.S. Civil War ironclad ship the  USS Monitor was Swedish born designer John Ericcson.  Who knew?

Another exhibit at the House of Sweden featured the photorealistic paintings of Swedish artist Karin Broos.  The exhibition Still Life by Karin Broos included "portrayals of everyday scenes" that express "ambiguous sentiments and universal feelings of melancholia and gloom."  One of Broos's paintings appears below.  

Greg wondered whether the young boy in the painting above is afraid because of what he sees on the computer screen or is afraid of the computer.  Fortunately, the boy has his cat to protect him.  

The third exhibit at the House of Sweden featured costumes from Ingmar Bergman films on the ocassion of the 100th anniversary of his birth.  Some of the costumes were beautiful, while others were fantastical, like the one pictured below from Bergman's 1957 film The Seventh Seal.

  

The House of Sweden is located next to Rock Creek where the creek empties into the Potomac River.  So, when the creek and river threaten to flood, the House of Sweden is at risk.  Fortunately, the building has a temporary flood wall, which was erected when we visited.  

P.S.  While visiting the House of Sweden, we bumped into our imaginary butler Lars, who is Swedish.  Lars has been on an extended vacation traveling the world in search of the best pickled herring.  He was stopping over in D.C. to visit his aunt, the current Swedish ambassador to the U.S.  Unfortunately, Aunt Karin could not recommend a source of quality pickled herring in D.C.  What a shame. 

If you can recommend a good place to get pickled herring, please let us know!