Revisiting the Villa Spies, i.e. revisiting in 2026 the subject matter of Mikael Askergren’s 1996 architectural monograph devoted to the Villa Spies, designed by young architect Staffan Berglund for wealthy business tycoon Simon Spies:
In the year 2026 (i.e. exactly 30 years since the publication of the architectural monograph in 1996), Mikael Askergren received an invitation to speak about the Villa Spies in general, and about its motorized flying
dinner table in particular, at the international culinary arts and architectural history conference Magical, Flying and Confidence Tables—Intimate Dining of the 18th-Century Nobility held at Český Krumlov Castle, Czech Republic, October 11–13, 2026.
During the Q&A (question and answer session) which followed immediately after Mikael Askergren’s presentation at the Český Krumlov Castle in October of 2026, an invaluable contribution was made by one of the conference’s other speakers, the historian Ivan Day, who in a moment of divine inspiration suggested that there might be a Cambridge (UK) connection to the origin story of the peculiar confidence table at Torö:
The Murray Edwards College of the University of Cambridge, designed in 1962–1965 by architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon (of Barbican Estate fame), is organized around a remarkable domed dining hall, in which, at its center, directly beneath the apex of the strikingly designed domed ceiling, there is a peculiar rising servery,
i.e. a bar that rises from below the floor for special events, creating an effect not dissimilar to the rising-and-descending platform(s) in a scene from the film Casino Royale (1967), a peculiar scene with a peculiar set design which Mikael Askergren wrote about on this blog in the year 2008.
The rising servery
of the Murray Edwards College could—and probably should—be added to the timeline of how the Torö confidence contraption came to be:
• In 1965, the rising servery
at Cambridge is inaugurated.
• Someone very important to the production and filming at some nearby London film studios of the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (filmed at Pinewood studios, Shepperton Studios, and Twickenham Studios) makes, for some reason or other, a visit to the Murray Edwards College (in those days still called New Hall), and gets to witness and experience the spectacle of the rising servery
during an event at the domed dining hall, and immediately decides that I want me one of those for my movie!
• The movie premieres in 1967.
• Someone very important to the design and construction of the Villa Spies at Torö sees the film (Staffan Berglund? or Simon Spies? in Stockholm or Copenhagen? or perhaps during a stay in London?), notices the rising-and-descending double-decker platform contraption in the film, and immediately decides that I want me one of those for my villa!
• The building permit application is submitted, and immediately approved, in 1968.
• The Villa Spies at Torö is inaugurated in 1969.
A few details worth keeping in mind when contemplating the dates mentioned in the timeline above:
Release dates of the film Casino Royale in 1967. UK: April 13 (premiere); April 23 (theatrical). US: April 19 (premiere); April 28 (theatrical). Denmark: December 21. Sweden: December 22.
The architect’s building permit drawings are dated February 14, 1968. (Four public record building permit drawings reproduced as illustrations here below.)
The drawings were submitted to—and almost immediately, just a few days later approved by—the planning department of Ösmo, the rural municipality to which the bucolic Torö peninsula belonged at the time (rural Ösmo was in 1974 incorporated into neighboring Nynäshamn). It seems the building project moved forward very quickly and that great changes were made to the villa’s design during the building process. In the 1968 building permit drawings, signed Staffan A:son Berglund,
many details in the floor plan layout, and in the structural engineering, differ from what actually got built in the following year. Even though there is a circular dining table with fixed curved seating surrounding it right at the center of the circular floor plan, one can’t tell from those 1968 drawings that it would be possible to hoist the entire dining feature from the basement up to the main floor. For this hoisting operation to be at all possible, a special purpose pit would have to be dug to house the scissor lift table mechanism. No such hoisting machinery pit beneath the level of the basement floor can yet be seen in the architect’s 1968 vertical section drawing. It therefore doesn’t seem inconceivable that the idea of a flying
table arrived very late in the design process; that this feature had in fact not yet, in February of 1968, matured enough to be presented to world as the multistory contraption that was actually realized in 1969; that perhaps the thought of adding a flying
table to the plan layout (and making the floor plan a perfect circle? and giving the entire roof the shape of a shallow dome?) had only dawned on Simon Spies and/or Staffan Berglund after one of them (or both of them?) had made a visit to the cinema to see one of the most anticipated films premiering in 1967.
Back to Cambridge (UK): so why has no one made the connection with the Cambridge rising-servery contraption before? Simply because it only functioned for a short period of time, the machinery soon broke down for some reason or other, and was never used for decades, only to be renovated and brought back to life again quite recently, in 2023. Thus, the rising servery
was not in use/out of order/all forgotten in 1996 when the book came out, and was still not in use/still out of order/still all forgotten in 2008 when Mikael Askergren made the discovery
of the obvious (?) connection between the villa and the film.
Now all that remains is to figure out wherefrom the architects of Cambridge’s New Hall/Murray Edwards College got the idea for their rising servery
contraption.
More by Mikael Askergren about the Villa Spies, designed by young architect Staffan Berglund for wealthy business tycoon Simon Spies:
Villa Spies (1996)
More about the international culinary arts and architectural history conference Magical, Flying and Confidence Tables—Intimate Dining of the 18th-Century Nobility held at Český Krumlov Castle, Czech Republic, October 11–13, 2026:
Conference website
The above blog post illustrated with a series of stills from a video published on YouTube by Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge:
The buildings of Murray Edwards College/New Hall (2026)
Instagram account of food historian Ivan Day (UK):
@ivanpatrickday
Source for release dates of the film Casino Royale (1967):
themoviedb.org
A comprehensive illustrated history in English about a great many of Europe’s surviving 18th-century flying
confidence tables (El Brundino blog post, 2015):
Table Set Thyself—The Confidence Table in Europe
Also about flying
tables, by one of the other speakers at the Český Krumlov conference, the French art historian Stéphane Castelluccio: Les Chaises et les tables volantes au XVIIIe siècle (Flying Chairs and Tables in the 18th Century,
Éditions Honoré Clair 2023):
Château de Versailles bookshop