SWEDISH INTERMEDIATE 1
2023-10-05 19:20 - 21:00, 2023-10-12 19:20 - 21:00, 2023-10-19 19:20 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered at Scandinavia House! In this course held online only, the focus will be primarily on conversation. Students will discuss various subjects brought up in each chapter via the informative texts, with topics spanning subjects such as Swedish cultural and social life, wild animals, historical figures, politics, and others. The grammar is overall a comprehensive repetition of the beginner levels, while also introducing a few new things like reflexive pronouns, the present participle and the conditional. Students will be required to read assigned books over the course of the semester. Intermediate 1 runs over three semesters and can be taken in any order.
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EDVARD MUNCH: TRANSFORMING NATURE
2023-10-07 14:30 - 16:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On October 7, join us for the discussion Edvard Munch: Transforming Nature. Jay A. Clarke, who received a grant from the American-Scandinavian Foundation to conduct research for the current exhibition and publication Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth on view now at the Clark Art Institution through October 15, is Rothman Family Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. In today’s discussion, Clarke will examine how Munch animated nature to bring meaning to his work. Known primarily as a figure painter, Munch’s best-known images are connected to themes of love, anxiety, longing, and death; yet a large portion of his works feature landscape.
This talk will consider his iconic images from a new perspective, one that resonates with current anxieties around climate instability. His depictions of the natural world celebrate the fecundity of the earth in farming practice and garden cultivation, question the mysteries of the forest, and address psychological states. The lecture will also explore how Munch developed his own pantheistic and philosophical views of nature and used them to transform his surroundings.
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HOLIDAY BUILDING CLOSURE
2023-10-09 08:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Scandinavia House will be closed for the holiday on Monday, October 9, 2023. This includes all spaces in the building, including Björk Cafe & Bistro.
See you after the holiday!

NORWEGIAN 1 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-10-10 17:45 - 18:45, 2023-10-11 17:45 - 18:45, 2023-10-17 17:45 - 18:45, 2023-10-18 17:45 - 18:45 | NY
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this fall at Scandinavia House! In this beginner’s course, you will build your Norwegian vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar skills, while also learning about Norwegian culture and life. By the course’s end, you should be able to conduct simple conversations in Norwegian.
You will get to practice conversations and reading in class, and there will be a focus on pronunciation, and Norwegian vowels and sounds, which may be new to your ear. Students are welcome to bring personal experiences, anecdotes, and facts about Norway into class discussions. There will also be at-home assignments focusing on reading, writing, and grammar, as well as an optional end-of-semester presentation.
Outside of class, students are encouraged to watch Norwegian shows, and movies, read simple text, and have Norwegian podcasts on in the background.
The required text will be provided via pdf, before the first class.
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THE RED BOOK OF FAREWELLS BY PIRKKO SAISIO
2023-10-10 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On October 10, translator Mia Spangenberg joins us for a special talk on The Red Book of Farewells by Finnish author Pirkko Saisio, out now from Two Lines Press.
Pirkko Saisio’s autofictional novel, in Mia Spangenberg’s tender translation, is a mesmerizing account of radical politics and sexual awakening in a series of farewells — to her mother, to the idealism of youth, to friends and lovers, and finally to her grown daughter. The novel embeds readers in a delirious Finland, where art and communist politics are hopelessly intertwined, and where queer love (still criminalized before 1971) thrives in underground bars. But then one morning in 2002, on a remote island off the coast of Finland, the narrator Pirkko Saisio informs her publisher that she’s accidentally deleted her latest manuscript, The Red Book of Farewells.
Playful and mysterious, and winner of the Finlandia Prize and Aleksis Kivi Prize, The Red Book of Farewells is a work that stoically embraces the small revolutions of moving on.
The event will be attended by special guest and translator Mia Spangenberg.
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SWEDISH ADVANCED INTERMEDIATE — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-10-10 18:10 - 19:50, 2023-10-17 18:10 - 19:50 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered at Scandinavia House! This course held both online and in-person at Scandinavia House is aimed for students who are slightly more advanced in Swedish, and are able to speak the language without too much effort, as well as easily read novels. Students will engage in conversation and discussions, and themes will be of a more philosophical nature, involving global questions and fiction. Grammatically, various structures and conjugations will be reviewed so students can refine their speech and writing. Students will be assigned a book to read during the semester.
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NORWEGIAN 3 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-10-10 19:00 - 21:00, 2023-10-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this spring at Scandinavia House! In this intermediate-level course building upon Norwegian 2 (or its equivalent), all four core skill areas (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) are covered, with an emphasis on conversational Norwegian. Continue to expand your vocabulary and master grammatical structures, while enhancing your conversational abilities, and deepening your cultural knowledge of all things Norwegian, through study of themes related to daily life.
You will get to practice more in-depth conversations in class which will put your grammatical structures to the test, all the while building on your listening, and speaking skills. Focus will be given to pronunciation, Norwegian structure, tone, and flow. Students will have the opportunity to engage in discussion by bringing topics that interest them about Norway into class, including anecdotes, and personal experiences. There will also be weekly at-home assignments, and more, focusing on reading, writing, and grammar, as well as a recommend end-of-semester presentation.
Outside of class, students are encouraged to read Norwegian articles, listen to podcasts and/or audio books, and watch Norwegian shows and movies, weekly.
The required text will be provided via pdf, before the first class.
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MISS VIBORG
2023-10-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
This fall at Scandinavia House, experience Nordic comedy at its darkest with “Svart Humor”! “If there’s a dead body in Denmark, someone is going to make a joke about it,” director Anders Jensen once said; Nordic comedies are as known for their deadpan, dry wit as for their occasionally noir subject matter, celebrating the “svart/sort” (dark) side of life’s hilarities.
On October 11, see Marianne Blicher’s Miss Viborg (Denmark, 2022). Former beauty queen and senior citizen Solvej (Ragnhild Kaasgaard) lives alone with her dog in a social housing area on the outskirts of Danish provincial town Viborg. Each day, she performs the same old routines — roaming around on her scooter dealing her prescription drugs, dreaming of a world outside Viborg and reminiscing over old love letters from her past.
When unforeseen circumstances bring her neighbor’s daughter, rebellious 17-year-old Kate (Isabella Møller Hansen) into her life, an unlikely friendship forms, bringing new hope for the future.
Winner of awards including Best Picture and Vision Award from IndiePix; Best Feature, Best Written Film, Audience Award at Mag Film Fest; and Special Jury Award at Monte-Carlo Film Festival, Miss Viborg is an ode to eccentricity, and a celebration of community found in unexpected places.
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NORWEGIAN 4 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-10-11 19:00 - 21:00, 2023-10-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this spring at Scandinavia House! Designed for intermediate learners who have taken Norwegian 3 or equivalent, this course continues to expand and refine your speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, enabling grammatically correct conversations, and language structure. A stronger focus will be given to pronunciation, Norwegian structure, tone, and flow.
You will get the opportunity to hone in your knowledge of grammatical structures, thus engaging more confidently in conversations and discussions in class, expanding your vocabulary, and fine-tuning your listening skills. Students are actively encouraged to talk more in-depth about their own experiences in Norwegian.
There will also be weekly at-home assignments, and more, focusing on reading, writing, and grammar, as well as a strongly recommend end-of-semester presentation. Students are strongly encouraged to watch and read Norwegian news, and articles, watch Norwegian shows and movies, and listen to podcasts and audio books, as often as possible, on a weekly basis at a minimum. These classes are conducted in Norwegian, with the occasional English word/sentence.
Please note that in order to take this course, you should be comfortable using the simple past tense and present perfect, and have knowledge of regular and irregular verbs, as well as their irregularities and rules. You should also be able to use indefinite, definite, and plural forms of masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns; conjugate adjectives; and apply intermediate Norwegian sentence structure, including “inversion.”
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SWEDISH ADVANCED BEGINNER 1
2023-10-12 18:10 - 19:10, 2023-10-17 20:00 - 21:00, 2023-10-19 18:10 - 19:10 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this winter at Scandinavia House! In this course held in-person at Scandinavia House and offered remotely via Zoom, students will continue to perfect their previous learned skills and pronunciation, while also expanding into more complex sentence structure. Furthermore, the students will be asked to express their opinions or beliefs in simple discussions related to Swedish life within the themes studied. The students will be required to read a literary book over the course of the semester.
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TILLIE THE TERRIBLE SWEDE A FAMILY PUPPET SHOW
2023-10-14 10:00 - 10:45, 2023-10-14 13:00 - 13:45 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On October 14, join us for Tillie the Terrible Swede, a show for the whole family featuring marionette puppets, live performers and most importantly — a bicycle!
Based on the true story of pioneering sportswoman Matilda Anderson, the play shows us how Tillie emigrated from Sweden to Chicago in 1891, working as a seamstress to save money to buy herself a bicycle. And once she was riding, she became good — like, best female bicyclist in the world kind of good!
Not everyone liked what she was doing, including friends and family — she was even ridiculed in some newspapers. But that didn’t stop Tillie from competing. And by the time she was 20 years old, the League of American Wheelmen recognized her as the best woman cyclist in the world.
Written and directed by Cinna Vesterberg and puppets and set design by Kevin White, Tillie the Terrible Swede takes family audiences across a journey of working hard to follow your dreams, and never giving up.
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SWEDISH BEGINNER 2 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-10-16 18:10 - 19:10, 2023-10-18 19:50 - 20:50 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this winter at Scandinavia House! This course is for those who are still new to Swedish but perhaps have studied some on their own using apps or through other means. Students will have a basic knowledge of sentence structure, greetings, know their numbers, how to tell time and already possess a small but basic vocabulary. This semester the students will move beyond themselves and explore how to buy and order things, talk about what they do in their spare time, and read about an historical figure. Grammatically they will expand into other tenses and learn how adjectives and nouns inform each other. Various facets of Swedish life may be discussed during the course. This class will take place as hybrid learning on Mondays with classes offered at Scandinavia House and online via Zoom, and online-only on Wednesdays.
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SWEDISH BEGINNER 1
2023-10-16 19:20 - 20:20, 2023-10-18 18:40 - 19:40 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered at Scandinavia House! In this course held both in-person and as remote learning for those completely new to Swedish, students will learn the very basics of Swedish structure and pronunciation while also discussing cultural aspects of Swedish life. This class will take place as hybrid learning, with Monday sessions both online and in-person at Scandinavia House and Wednesday sessions online via Zoom.
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THE CHIEFTAIN AND THE CHAIR
2023-10-17 19:00 - 20:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us October 17 for a discussion of The Chieftain and the Chair: The Rise of Danish Design in Postwar America with art historian and ASF Fellow Maggie Taft! She will discuss how Danish design rose to prominence in the postwar United States, becoming shorthand for stylish modern comfort, as explored in her book out now from University of Chicago Press.
Today, Danish Modern design is synonymous with clean, midcentury cool. During the 1950s and ‘60s, it flourished as the furniture choice for Americans who hoped to signal they were current and chic. But how did this happen? How did Danish Modern become the design movement of the times? In The Chieftain and the Chair, Maggie Taft tells the tale of our love affair with Danish Modern design. Structured as a biography of two iconic chairs—Finn Juhl’s Chieftain Chair and Hans Wegner’s Round Chair, both designed and first fabricated in 1949—this book follows the chairs from conception and fabrication through marketing, distribution, and use.

Drawing on research in public and private archives, Taft considers how political, economic, and cultural forces in interwar Denmark laid the foundations for the postwar furniture industry, and she tracks the deliberate maneuvering on the part of Danish creatives and manufacturers to cater to an American market. Taft also reveals how American tastemakers and industrialists were eager to harness Danish design to serve American interests and how furniture manufacturers around the world were quick to capitalize on the fad by flooding the market with copies.
Sleek and minimalist, Danish Modern has experienced a resurgence of popularity in the last few decades and remains a sought after design. This accessible and engaging history offers a unique look at its enduring rise among tastemakers.
The talk will take place at Scandinavia House.
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DAY BY DAY
2023-10-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
This fall at Scandinavia House, experience Nordic comedy at its darkest with “Svart Humor”! “If there’s a dead body in Denmark, someone is going to make a joke about it,” director Anders Jensen once said; Nordic comedies are as known for their deadpan, dry wit as for their occasionally noir subject matter, celebrating the “svart/sort” (dark) side of life’s hilarities.
On October 18, see the Day By Day (Sweden, 2022), the newest film from The 100-Year-Old-Man director Felix Herngren!
In this life-affirming tale about it never being too late to make changes in your life, five very different people come together on a campervan trip from Gothenburg to Switzerland to honor an old man’s last wish.Cross-generation friendships develop, love arrives in twilight years, and life-changing decisions are made.
Nominated for the 2022 Guldbagge Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Sven Wollter).
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GRETA MAGNUSSON GROSSMAN: MODERN DESIGN FROM SWEDEN TO CALIFORNIA
2023-10-19 19:00 - 20:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On October 19, join us for a book talk with Harriet Harriss and Naomi House on Greta Magnusson Grossman: Modern Design from Sweden to California, out now from Lund Humphries! They’ll discuss their definitive book on Swedish designer, whose significant contributions to design and architecture have largely been ignored until recently.
Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906-1999) was a prolific designer working within the male-dominated world of mid-century modern design, whose status and influence has been largely ignored. Grossman was the ultimate polymath — an industrial designer, interior designer and architect working within two fascinating contexts: Scandinavia and North America. This book gives an overview of Grossman’s background and education and the formative years of her career in Sweden, before describing her move to Los Angeles in 1940.
While she is remembered for her work as a product and lighting designer, her work as an interior designer has been almost entirely overlooked.
This book catalogues and emphasizes the significance of her contribution to interior design: making the connections between ideas she tested at the scale of the product within the interior environment. It positions her contribution to interior design in relation to the canon of the genres to which she contributed, her discipline and the emerging canon of women designers — who are only now being recognized, whilst considering her enduring legacy upon the world of design today.
This talk will take place at Scandinavia House.
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OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK 2023
2023-10-21 12:00 - 18:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Scandinavia House is delighted to once again be participating in Open House New York! We will be opening our doors for self-guided tours on Saturday and Sunday, October 21 & 22, with special weekend hours both days for our new exhibition Narrative Threads: Works by Eight Nordic Artists.
Explore spaces in the building on a self-guided tour, including the third-floor gallery and the current exhibition, Narrative Threads: Works by Eight Nordic Artists, which presents multi-media artwork by Nordic artists who are distinguished by their innovative use of natural, synthetic, and digital materials (open Saturday & Sunday, 12-6 PM); the lower-level Victor Borge Hall, dedicated to the legendary Danish entertainer, which features films, concerts, and performing arts (Saturday open lobby only, 12-6 PM; Sunday, 1-6 PM); the second floor Volvo Hall event and reception space (Sunday only, 1-6 PM); the interactive Heimbold Family Children’s Playing and Learning Center (Sunday only); and the Halldór Laxness Library (Saturday & Sunday, 12-6 PM). Björk Cafe & Bistro will also be open for dining both days, as well as the Shop at Scandinavia House.
