While most people deliberate for weeks, if not months, over moving to a new city or state, Thomas McEntee decamped to Stockholm from New York City practically overnight.
19.07.2023 - 13:05 / atlasobscura.com
It’s hard to miss when you walk around southern Stockholm: the giant white ball known officially as the Avicii Arena, which locals simply call Globen, or “the Globe.” With a diameter of 360 feet (110 meters), an inner height of 279 feet (86 meters), and a volume of 21.4 million cubic feet (605,000 cubic meters), it was until recently the largest spherical building in the world.
Inaugurated in 1989 and known until 2021 as the Ericsson Globe, it was renamed after Avicii, a beloved Swedish DJ, who died in 2018. Two external gondolas can take up to 12 passengers each to the top of the globe for a truly panoramic view of the Swedish capital.
The venue is used mainly for ice hockey games, concerts, and other mass events, including the Eurovision Song Contest (twice, once in 2000 and again in 2016). In 2018, Metallica drew a record crowd of 17,303 fans to the Globe.
There is another thing that is unique about the Avicii Arena, one that is not immediately obvious even from its size: It is the center of the world’s largest scale model of our solar system. In other words, the Globe is the Sun, and distributed throughout Stockholm, its suburbs, and further parts of Sweden, there are models of the planets, comets, and other heavenly bodies that are our closest neighbors in our little corner of the universe, all on a scale of 1:20 million.
The Sweden Solar System—probably also the world’s largest scale model per se—makes full use of the country’s vastness. If there is one thing Sweden has plenty of, it is space. At 172,752 square miles (447,425 square kilometers), it is Europe’s fifth-largest country (after Russia, Ukraine, France, and Spain). Due to its peculiarly elongated shape, Sweden’s southernmost point is closer to Rome (930
While most people deliberate for weeks, if not months, over moving to a new city or state, Thomas McEntee decamped to Stockholm from New York City practically overnight.
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