Mamma mia! An ABBA museum

2007-05-23 17:01

Stockholm - The world's first museum in honour of legendary Swedish disco group ABBA will open its doors in an old customs building in central Stockholm in 2009, organisers announced on Tuesday.

"ABBA the Museum" will be located on the island of Soedermalm, in a waterfront building a short walk from the city centre.

The exhibition will fill three floors and more than 4 000 square metres of material related to the super group, initiators and ABBA fans Ewa Wigenheim-Westman and Ulf Westman told a press conference.

The old customs building - Tullhuset - is a protected heritage site on the banks of the Baltic Sea, not far from another popular tourist attraction, the Old Town.

"The city will rebuild Tullhuset and work will begin at the end of the year. Afterwards the museum will pay rent," Stockholm mayor Kristina Axen-Olin told AFP. "So far we don't know how much it will cost."

The couple behind the project, Wigenheim-Westman and Westman, pitched their idea for a museum last November and initially indicated it would open in 2008.

The museum will be an ultramodern place, filled with ABBA's music, original clothes, images, instruments and much more that captures the group's heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, the couple said.

All four ABBA members are backing the project

It will also be able to host events and house a cafe and a museum shop.

All four members of ABBA have given their backing to the project and will provide the museum with clothes, instruments and music.

Despite having broken up a quarter of a century ago, the group still sells between two and three million albums a year.

To date they have sold 360 million records, with only Elvis and the Beatles selling more.

The four ABBA members, Bjoern Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Faeltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad enjoyed worldwide successes with tunes such as Money, Money, Money, Waterloo, Summer Night City and Dancing Queen.

- AFP