Nobel Prize Museum

The museum opened in 2001 for the prize's centenary in the old stock exchange building on Stortorget, which also houses the Swedish Academy - the body that decides the literature prize - so the institution and the museum share an address. The displays work through individual laureates rather than through disciplines: each has been asked to donate an object that mattered to them, and those objects, from bicycles to notebooks to a piece of the Berlin Wall, hang on a cable system that carries them slowly round the ceiling. There is film, a section on Alfred Nobel and the dynamite fortune behind the endowment, and a cafe where the chairs are signed underneath by laureates.

Background

The museum stands on the north side of Stortorget in Gamla Stan, sharing the former Stock Exchange Building with the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Library. It opened in the spring of 2001 as the Nobel Museum and took its present name in 2019, when Erika Lanner became director. Alongside the prize and its laureates, it covers the life of Alfred Nobel, who lived from 1833 to 1896. Temporary shows have included Sketches of science, a photo exhibition of 42 laureates pictured with their own sketch of the discovery that earned the prize. In 2011 the museum shop worked with the artist Artan Mansouri on paintings symbolising Nobel's life.

Source: Wikipedia, "Nobel Prize Museum"

Highlights

• Objects chosen by laureates - circulating on an overhead cable.
• The Swedish Academy's building - the old stock exchange on Stortorget.
• Alfred Nobel and the endowment - where the money came from.
• Signed chairs in the cafe - signatures underneath the seats.

When to go

Year round; hours are longer in summer. An hour and a half.

What to expect

It is small for the ticket price. The object-based approach is thin on the science itself. Stortorget outside is very crowded in season. The cafe queues at lunchtime.

Nearby

Storkyrkan and the Royal Palace are a minute away.

Key facts