The one colour notable by its absence from the superb Blue Room in Stockholm Town Hall is blue. In 1910, when the architect, Ragnar Ostberg, was persuading the politicians that a magnificent new chamber of civic governance should take precedence over housing the poor, he waxed eloquent about the lavishly blue and gold halls which were to become the focus for civic events. As it turned out, the Town Hall was such a long time in the making that the red brick construction of the Blue Room grew on people. Thus, after it had been standing for the best part of a decade, nobody wanted to change it. Apart from being red the Blue Room's other notable attribute is that, to create the patina of age, Ostberg then instructed that the surface of every brick be carefully chiselled to create an olde-world rusticated effect. The Town Hall now stands magnificent by the water's edge, as an example of pastiche

in excelsis.

Stockholm's motto, perhaps a little more literal than ''Glasgow's Miles Better'' , is ''Beauty on Water'', and among the city's many lakeside monuments, Ostberg's Town Hall is arguably the most visually arresting. While the water's edge and the various Stockholm islands still contain much that is historic, the centre of the city was demolished in the 1960s and its fabric of retail emporia, offices, hotels, and roadways is virtually all new. It is in the context of this city of contrasts that this year's celebration of Stockholm's role as European Capital of Culture is taking place. Eight years on from Glasgow's joyous celebration of the best of its arts, Stockholm is host to a plethora of exhibitions, conferences, and festivities.

It is, perhaps, inevitable that major, year-long, celebratory events should prompt a reaction from the politicians. In Stockholm's case much that has been planned for the reorganisation of roadways, realignment of shop frontages, and enhancement of public spaces is now happening. City architect Per Kallstenius is seeing a number of his commendable ambitions coming to fruition. Of course the downside is that all this building work, approved by the politicians, at least in part because of the city's status as European Capital of Culture, is messing up the streets. And just when the locals want them to be uncluttered and decorative for the party. Mr Kallstenius appreciates the irony of the phonecalls, letters, and press articles which cite him as the guilty party. He acknowledges, wryly, that given time-limited finance and the lengthy convolutions of the building process, you've simply got to

act when the politicians, spurred by whichever celebratory catalyst, give you the approval and wherewithal to get something done. As Glasgow moves towards 1999 and the big crane has moved into Mitchell Street to help create the Lighthouse, it seems inevitable that this city, too, will fall victim to the big event syndrome. Homes for the Future will be a prime example of the building process because there is simply no way that such an ambitious housing project could ever have been achieved in time for the year which prompted its being.

Like the central areas of Stockholm where new landscaping, water features, and planting are happening during 1998 so, all going to plan, Glasgow's Great Street project will really get moving in 1999. Buchanan Street is set to become our equivalent of Las Ramblas or the Champs-Elysees, albeit on a marginally more modest scale.

The one really notable difference between the Swedish capital and Scotland's largest city (apart from Stockholm's lack of litter) is the fact that the former clearly has the wherewithal to invest in its historic buildings and to radically alter great tracts of the city centre. In the Dear Green Place we simply don't have the cash to look after our unique legacy of Victorian and Georgian masterpieces or, indeed, to do all that we should be doing for the streets of the city centre, far less those on Glasgow's margins.

Given that Stockholm's year as the City of Culture has served as a catalyst to the further enhancement of what is already beautiful beside the waters of the Baltic, it can only be hoped that 1999 will persuade the politicians, in whichever government is appropriate next year, that Glasgow's cause is both a worthy and deserving one. Perhaps the advent of a Scottish Parliament will prompt a reappraisal of spending priorities. We can only hope that, like the good citizens of Stockholm who have been writing letters to Mr Kallstenius, we will have lots more disruption to complain about next year.