The Central Post Office Building (Centralposthuset or Centralposten) is a historical building at 28-34, Vasagatan in central Stockholm, Sweden. Inaugurated in 1903 and designed by architect Ferdinand Boberg (1860–1945), the building was the headquarters of Posten (Swedish post services) until 2003. It is currently serving as the offices for the of the Ministry of Enterprise and some functions of the Government Offices, after an extensive rebuild in April 2008.

ARCHITECTURE

To give prominence to the building, Boberg choose to counter the limited building site with a system of massive volumes and elaborate carvings — or using his own words: "release some suitable mass out of the building and more or less let it go up in the air". He thus added several tower-like volumes to the core volume: (1) A short central tower reaching above the roof and sitting on a vigorously modelled entrance. (2) Two smaller towers bulging out of the corners dressed in bricks exposing the mass of the building to passers-by. This is undoubtedly a successful design as the building still dominates its neighbourhood notwithstanding the considerably larger buildings added during the 1960s and 70s.[1][3] To give further authority to the building, Boberg dressed the base floor in red Övedskloster sandstone matching the red Höganäs bricks covering the walls above where the deep-laying windows further accentuate mass and weight. The roofs were covered with slate.

Boberg favoured a kind of orientalism combined with a sense appropriateness in an era when such decorations and exotic styles were regarded as lacking Swedish recognition (sakna hemortsrätt). On the octagonal top of the tower is a flat dome flanked by finials, which has been described as Indio-Persian.[6] Also characteristic for Boberg is the use of ornamentation. It is lavishly applied around the main entrance and along the pavements, its motifs — Swedish coat of arms and homing pigeons — are derived from the activities in the building or — pine twigs and various small animals — from what at the time was regarded as typical Swedish (i.e. a love of nature). All these carving were based on drawings by Boberg and plaster models by Axel Bruce.

The cross-vaulted central portion of the five nave central hall is two stories tall and enlightened by skylights. Under the marble arcades surrounding the hall where once the oak counters. The plastered walls, originally intended to be dressed in stone, are covered with postal emblems; the coats of arms of the nation, its provinces, and the city; and a pine-cone border characteristic for its time. The large mural above the stairs, completed in 1907, is by Carl Wilhelmsson and displays a steamship delivering post to a post carriage at Skeppsbron. The flat dome of the central hall was built in a traditional technique without using iron constructions