The story of IVA's house
As now, the street house had a restaurant and shops on the ground floor and a banqueting hall upstairs. The original ceiling paintings can still be admired in the dining room of the Grodan restaurant.
The banqueting hall, with silk wallpaper bought in Paris and stucco ceilings in white and gold, is largely unchanged today. There was the large banqueting hall, three smaller salons, the music room and the "small banqueting hall", which is now IVA's science library. When the sliding doors were opened, the result was a continuous hall 47 metres long, "probably the largest in Stockholm".
Today, up to 175 guests can be served at a seated table.
Two floors up, various clubs had their premises and on the next floor lived the riding centre manager and the cellar master. In the attic there was a "velocipede school" with a training track as long as the whole building. A lawn tennis school was also run on the same premises. Stockholm Tattersall was a success in terms of attendance, but the company went bankrupt in 1901.
Tattersall Stockholm
The name Tattersall was originally associated with equestrianism through Richard Tattersall, who founded Tattersalls in London in 1766. The business included brokerage, racing, betting and exhibitions. Over time, Tattersall also opened in Paris, Berlin, New York, Sydney and in Stockholm in December 1898. Equestrian sports were the main focus, and there was a modern stable for 90 horses, as well as a large two-storey manege in the courtyard. In the upper hall, with a spacious spectator gallery two flights up and a music gallery on the opposite short wall, riding lessons and shows took place. There were "colossal mirrors, so that the riders have ample opportunity to admire the elegance with which they carry themselves in the saddle".
NK, fire and technical museum
For a few years, NK, Nordiska Kompaniet, moved its furniture and bed linen departments with workshops, warehouse and exhibition to the old riding school premises. The entrance and the fronts of the shops then took on roughly their current appearance. A major fire in 1913 completely destroyed the mezzanine and the attic of the street house, despite all available resources being deployed, including Stockholm's first "automobile sprayer".
Within a year, the building was rebuilt. The street house now had a new residential attic, and the middle house had been completely rebuilt with residential flats. In the attic there was a studio apartment where the Academy's subsidiary institute, the Technical Museum, opened its first small temporary exhibition in 1926. Unfortunately, the stately riding hall was gone forever. Since IVA's creator, Axel F. Enström, took over the shares of the property company in March 1919, the Academy of Engineering Sciences was able to settle under its own roof immediately after its formation in the autumn of the same year.
Modern meeting rooms
An important task for the Academy is to be a meeting place for business, research and politics, and the need for meeting facilities is therefore very great. Over time, an efficient and well-equipped conference centre has developed and in the early 1980s the step was taken to open the IVA Conference Centre to the general market. Today, the conference centre is one of Stockholm's most popular meeting places and an important part of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
In addition to IVA and IVA Conference Centre, the property currently houses around 30 rental apartments, around 10 office tenants, the Grodan restaurant and a couple of exclusive shops.