Word: scandinavia
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...north has produced few great artists of the stature of Edvard Munch; but architects such as Finland's Alvar Aalto and Denmark's Arne Jacobsen are among the world's most admired. Dozens of northern artisans-ceramists, glass blowers, weavers, cabinetmakers and silversmiths-have made Scandinavia an international synonym for elegant functionalism. Whether in a car or a carpet, Scandinavian artisans at their best blend traditionally solid craftsmanship with a daring use of form or clever technique...
...eyes, Scandinavia, like its handicrafts, is a happy union of past and present, of comfortable conformity and bold innovation. Skyscrapers live in harmony with magnificent 8th century castles; sleek new streetcars glide silently over cobbled streets. In Sweden, the visitor may be whisked from a new nuclear power plant outside Stockholm to 500-year-old Uppsala University, where the founder of modern botany, Carolus Linnaeus, studied in the 18th century. ("God created," say the tidy Swedes. "Linnaeus put things in order.") Stockholm cops, though issued guns during Khrushchev's visit, normally cling grimly to their accustomed sabers. Proud Viking...
Chest of Tattoos. The three royal families are themselves a pleasantly nostalgic reminder of Scandinavia's great conqueror-kings. Long since shorn of all power, the democratic monarchs are universally liked by their subjects and show none of the condescension that surrounds the British throne. Danes seem happy enough that King Frederik lives in a wing of the Amalienborg Palace in downtown Copenhagen rather than in the gloomy, inconvenient Christiansborg Castle where the royal family lived in the past. And they did not revolt when a too-candid picture revealed that the towering (6 ft. 4 in.), rugged King...
...Scandinavia's royal families have played an influential part in the north's emergence from the traditional isolationism that ended with World War II. Since then, Norway and Denmark have bound themselves to Europe as charter members of NATO and EFTA, the Outer Seven trading bloc. Finland, Russia's only European neighbor that has not been plucked behind the Iron Curtain, has meticulously observed the neutrality agreement imposed on its government by Moscow after its valiant defense against the Red army. Nonetheless, the Finns are also associated with EFTA and have strong economic and emotional ties...
...their geographical proximity, there is only a partial pattern in the customs, the people, the cultures of Scandinavia...