Törnerska villan, Building in Östermalm, Stockholm, Sweden

Törnerska villan is a wooden house on a small hill called Björkhagen, just north of the English Church in Stockholm. The south side opens into a large glass porch with diamond-shaped windows, colored glass pieces and hand-carved trim, all finished in light green with red window frames.

The house was built in the 1870s by Adolf Rickard Törner, an artillery maker who tested rockets nearby and ran a gunpowder and ammunition workshop in the area. It remained a private home until 2002, when Sveriges Radio bought it and turned it into offices for the Berwaldhallen concert venue.

A blue plaque from the Stockholm City Museum marks the building as having very high cultural value in Sweden. People passing by often pause to photograph the detailed woodwork of the veranda and the bright colors against the surrounding old houses.

The house is not open to the public, so you can only view it from the street. A gentle walk of about ten minutes from Östermalmstorg subway station along Dag Hammarskjölds väg brings you to the corner with Lidingövägen.

The name of the hill, Björkhagen, hints at a past of birch trees on this rise above the city streets. Few visitors notice that the same ground once served as a testing area for early rockets and gunpowder experiments.