New Book – A Landmark Volume
Tens of thousands of photographs and many years of documentation lie behind the beautiful volume published to coincide with the anniversary.
Ten years ago, Yanan Li was asked whether he would consider creating a book to mark Konserthuset’s centenary. After a decade of observation, photography and close encounters with both the building and the people within it, the book is now complete – Konserthuset Stockholm – With the Red Heart. It is a volume in which images and texts together tell the story of a vibrant house and the people who bring it to life.
Yanan Li first met Konserthuset’s then Chief Executive, Stefan Forsberg, at the opening of his photographic exhibition on Carl Milles at Konserthuset in 2016.
“Just a few minutes before the inauguration, he asked whether I would like to create a book for the hundredth anniversary ten years later.”
Yanan asked for time to think. For four years the idea stayed with him before he knocked on Stefan Forsberg’s office door to ask whether the offer still stood.
“It did. Stefan almost immediately took out a key and gave me access to the building.”
Since then, Yanan Li has spent countless hours in the blue building at Hötorget, capturing its moods and expressions – musical as well as architectural. What began quite literally as feeling his way through darkened corridors during the pandemic gradually came into the light.
“During the pandemic, I suddenly found the music. In Grünewald Hall it continued, even though everything else was shut down. Several concerts were recorded there for broadcast on Konserthuset Play. I had a sense of the Titanic: the power of music continuing to sound from the depths of the soul.”
When the pandemic had passed, Konserthuset presented a major summer exhibition of the photographs Yanan Li had taken during the shutdown. It attracted record numbers of visitors. Over the following years, he continued to visit Konserthuset several times a week.
And it is not only Ivar Tengbom’s elegant architecture that he has studied at close range – nor only rehearsals, concerts and ceremonial occasions such as the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.
“I want to show how the building is a beating heart where everyone works towards a common goal. Someone is vacuuming the floors, a producer is preparing sausages for the orchestra at the Gärdet festival, a female musician is breastfeeding her baby during the interval. Or when the Chief Executive himself climbs onto the back of a chair to fix a cable before a live broadcast during the pandemic.”
Early in the project, Yanan Li suggested that his photographs should be accompanied by texts by Anna-Karin Palm. The two had previously collaborated on a similar book about Stockholm City Hall.
“Her writing works beautifully with my images, and I was so happy when she said yes,” he says.
Anna-Karin Palm is equally pleased about the collaboration and has a very personal connection to Konserthuset.
“I worked in the cloakroom for a couple of years while I was studying. We had loudspeakers there, and sometimes you could slip in and listen to the concerts. One of the texts in the book is based on my memories from that time.”
She emphasises that it is the photographs that form the backbone of the book.
“My texts are small impressions. Yanan’s images inspire you to look closely at the details. At Konserthuset there is a care for the smallest details, in both music and architecture. Even the tiniest window latch and fitting carries quality and the highest level of craftsmanship. Being in such spaces does something to you. I tried to put my observations into words.”
She also underlines the building’s human dimension.
“The final text is called ‘One Hundred Years of Music’. It begins with a school concert and ends with an occasion when a woman in the audience was celebrating her birthday. You can spend a whole lifetime in that building, if you wish.”
The book would never have become what it is without the designer Nina Ulmaja.
“I may have had 10,000 images on my hard drive,” says Yanan Li. “Anna-Karin and I provided the ingredients. Nina’s task was to prepare and present them. She created the layout and structure.”
“She also received every change and new idea with great humility, even when twenty pages were removed and new concepts introduced.”
“At one point in the process, Nina, Yanan and I sat down together and found the book’s three-part structure,” says Anna-Karin Palm. “The first part is about the building, the second about everything from the Nobel Prize to the care of the house, and the third about the music.”
The design allows the reader to move visually through the building – from the foyer via the staircases to the grand concert hall, into the dressing rooms, the orchestra foyer and the piano tuner – while reading texts that illuminate all that is taking place.
The overall experience reflects the building, the music and the people who make the music possible.
— Anna Hedelius
Book
Konserthuset Stockholm – With the Red Heart (Arvinius+Orfeus Publishing, 2026). Over several years, photographer Yanan Li has documented the building and its inner life. The book’s texts are written by Anna-Karin Palm, Tony Lundman and Bo Madestrand.