History

At Miss Clara Hotel, in the very heart of downtown Stockholm, world famous architect Gert Wingårdh has managed to unite a warm feeling of modern day exclusivity together with outstanding functionality. This is all the more impressive of a feat given how he has been able to simultaneously keep many of the original details and features of the building, thus managing to celebrate its historic past.

An all-girl school for nearly 40 years

The stone floors which are still present in the majority of the common spaces throughout the hotel have been with the building through its whole existence. Built in 1910 and designed by the Swedish architectural power house of Hagström & Ekman, the building was created to host Ateneum, one of the nation’s biggest academic establishments for girls only. Every year between 1910-1939 hundreds of ambitious students walked the halls of the then four story building which still has its original banisters guiding our guests when walking up and down the stairway.

When the building was originally designed Hagström & Ekman gathered a lot of inspiration from the Art Nouveau trend which was extremely popular in almost all of Europe during the late 1800’s. Today, when admiring our hotel from the outside you are still able to see the original windows, characteristic for Art Nouveau era, which are present in every room on the first four floors of the hotel.

Discussing popularity in the late 1800’s it would be foolish of us not to mention Clara Strömberg. Clara was the extremely popular head mistress of the Ateneum girl’s school who enthusiastically guided her students through school work and personal conundrums. With a passion for life and a courage to challenge the norm she has been a true inspiration for our hotel, so much that we have actually decided to adopt her name, Miss Clara Hotel.

Photos: Larssons Ateljé, published by Stockholms stadsmuseum