Matchstick Palace

Commissioned by Ivar Kreuger, the 'Match King' who built a global monopoly on Swedish matches, this headquarters for Svenska Tändsticks AB was designed by architect Ivar Tengbom and completed in November 1928 — less than four years before Kreuger's business empire collapsed. Tengbom brought in some of Sweden's leading artists to collaborate on the building, including sculptor Carl Milles, who created the Diana fountain in its courtyard. Now protected as a blue-classified heritage building, it stands as a benchmark of 1920s Swedish Grace classicism, and as an accidental monument to the rise and fall of the man who commissioned it.